BX  9721 

.P34 

1913 

Palmer, 

Agnes 

Lizzie 

(Page) 

1874- 

The  salvage  o 

f  men 

The  Salvage  of  Men 


The  Salvage  of  Men 


Stories  of  Humanity 
Touched  by  Divinity 


AGNES  L.  PALMER 


-i'S. V 


New  York       Chicago       Toronto 

Fleming  H.  Revell  Company 
London      and       Edinburgh 


Copyright,  ig'S-  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  is8  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  125  North  Wabash  Ave. 
Toronto:  25  Richmond  Street,  W. 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:      100    Princes    Street 


A  world  chaotic,  formless,  darkened,  wild 
Revolved  in  space,  evolved  no  higher  state  ; 
This  to  achieve,  and  furnish  earth's  first  child 
Outer  with  intra  forces  must  relate. 
God's  Spirit  brooded  o'er  the  seething  mass, 
Upforth  leaped  order,  beauty,  light  and  peace. 
Now  Man,  God's  greatest  highest  work,  alas 
With  intellect  unmeasured,  doth  increase 
His  perverse  way  which  caused  him  first  to  fall ; 
The  impress  of  the  God  almost  effaced. 
His  majesty  and  strength  is  withered — small. 
Can  steps  so  wrongly  walked  e'er  be  retraced  ? 
Divinity  which  darkness  changed  to  light 
Is  still  abroad  transforming  wrong  to  right. 

W.  F.  P. 


Preface 

SOME  years  have  passed  since  the  reading 
world  shuddered  over  Frankenstein — the 
creature  which  was  supposed  to  be  a 
scientist's  greatest  triumph  in  its  perfect  imita- 
tion of  man  and  his  bitterest  defeat  in  that  the 
immortal  elixir  had  eluded  his  alchemy,  and  his 
creation  remained  soulless. 

To  deprive  the  Salvation  Army  of  its  Divine 
origin  and  mission,  and  divorce  its  social  from 
its  spiritual  energies  is  to  reduce  it  also  to  the 
level  and  danger  of  a  Frankenstein.  Bereft  of 
the  significance  and  power  of  religion,  all  this 
mighty  machinery  and  growing  influence  be- 
comes but  a  menace  in  the  realm  of  social 
ethics ;  shorn  of  its  soul  its  seemingly  most 
secular  operation  miserably  mocks  the  needs 
which  knock  at  its  gate.  Only  through  the 
eye  of  its  faith  can  its  import  to  the  sociology 
of  to-day  and  to-morrow  be  adequately  inter- 
preted. 

"With  this  thought  in  mind  the  following 
pages  have  been  written,  suggesting  the  Army's 


8  PEEFACE 

work  in  the  United  States  wholly  from  a 
spiritual  aspect.  Its  manifold  agencies  for  the 
reformation,  rehabilitation  and  regeneration  of 
man  are  revealed  here  in  the  story  of  their 
products,  for  are  not  converts  ever  the  most 
reliable  demonstration  as  well  as  the  most  con- 
clusive argument  for  any  organization  ?  Up- 
to-date  figures  regarding  these  results  are  con- 
tinually offered  for  the  public's  perusal,  but 
figures  alone  can  never  tell  the  whole  story. 
We  are  of  the  opinion  that  the  mathematical 
view  of  work  which  deals  with  the  live  woes 
and  wants  of  humanity  is  a  very  cold  and  in- 
adequate one.  As  we  read  the  Gospel's  narra- 
tive of  the  Master's  ministry,  we  are  impressed 
with  the  details  given  to  the  cases  of  individual 
converts  and  the  summary  way  in  which  the 
blessing  of  the  multitude  is  recorded.  Christ 
never  saw  or  saved  by  the  thousand,  and  the 
hand  which  reaches  and  wins  men  to-day  is 
that  which  goes  out  for  the  salvation  of  the 
unit.  Undoubtedly  it  is  this  personal  touch 
which  has  so  largely  stripped  from  the  Army's 
institution  the  cold  name  of  charity  which  deals 
with  the  erring  in  crowds,  and  crowned  it  as 
mercy  which  deals  with  them  as  individuals. 


PREFACE  9 

In  widely-differing  histories  of  men  and 
women  who  through  this  medium  have  ex- 
perienced the  miraculous  effect  of  the  Divine 
Touch,  its  Social  and  Industrial,  Field  and  Ee- 
lief ,  Women's  Rescue  and  Children's  Orphanage, 
Prison  and  Open-air  branches  are  disclosed  ; 
a  composite  picture  which  goes  to  show  that  all 
the  Army's  means  point  to  one  end — the  re- 
demption of  the  soul,  which  whether  it  is  car- 
ried under  broadcloth  or  homespun  or  a  ragged 
apology  for  raiment  these  people  persist  in 
thinking  equally  valuable  and  worth  saving. 
Upon  this  stage  of  real  life,  the  more  or  less 
tragic  experiences  of  the  drunkard,  the  parasite, 
the  criminal,  the  prostitute,  the  neglected  child, 
the  professional  gambler,  the  wife-deserter,  the 
would-be  suicide,  the  betrayed,  the  prize-fighter 
and  the  college-bred  are  enacted  in  characteris- 
tic habiliments,  until  exchanged  for  the  gar- 
ments of  righteousness. 

As  is  inevitable  with  any  work  dealing  with 
the  peoples  of  this  Union,  a  cosmopolitan  strain 
runs  through  the  narratives,  some  of  these  "  liv- 
ing epistles  "  being  drawn  from  the  Scandina- 
vian, Hebrew  and  Latin  populations,  as  well  as 
from  proud  descendants  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers. 


10  PEEFACE 

Above  and  through  all,  these  sketches  portray 
the  irrefutable  existence  of  Divinitv  abroad 
— that  dynamic  force  which  is  as  miich  extant 
in  our  world  as  ever  to  one  who  ann  read  its 
signs,  that  force  which  alone  is  stronger  than  a 
man's  besetting  sin  or  bewildering  circum- 
stance, that  force  which  is  throoghout  the  ages 
past  and  to  come  the  first  and  last  hope  of 
wrecked  humanity.  This  and  this  alone  ex- 
plains the  otherwise  unexplainable  transforma- 
tions described  in  these  pages.  It  is  the  same 
Divine  Energy  at  work,  producing  varied  ef- 
fects according  to  the  differing  character  of  its 
subjects.  Thus  under  its  power  the  self-centred 
miser  becomes  a  spendthrift  in  the  interests  of 
others,  the  drunkard's  destitution  becomes  sober 
prosperity,  the  ambitious  student  becomes  a 
lowly  Salvationist,  the  professional  trickster 
becomes  a  tower  of  integrity,  the  prize-fighter 
becomes  a  man  of  peace,  the  criminal  becomes 
a  good  citizen,  the  wife-deserter  becomes  a 
model  of  marital  constancy,  the  toil-loathing 
prostitute  becomes  an  industrious,  self-respecting 
woman,  the  parasitic  hobo  becomes  an  example 
in  honest  work,  on  the  brink  of  infanticide  the 
betrayed  shoulders  the  care  of  her  little  child, 


PEEFACE  11 

the  dethroned  genius  is  reinstated  and  the  neg- 
lected little  savage  is  tamed  into  normal 
adolescence. 

Again,  these  stories  should  give  an  emphatic 
and  conclusive  reply  to  the  oft-repeated  chal- 
lenge, "  Do  such  converts  stand  ?  "  We  be- 
lieve that  the  work  of  to-day  is  best  demon- 
strated by  the  existence  of  the  work  of  yester- 
day, and  surely  such  is  the  most  trustworthy  of 
all  guarantees  for  the  work  of  to-morrow.  In 
the  preparation  of  her  material,  the  writer  has 
steadfastly  resisted  the  fascination  of  more  recent 
cases,  feeling  that,  remarkable  as  they  are,  the 
time  is  not  yet  ripe  to  give  them  voice.  With 
the  single  exception  of  "  To-morrow's  Man," 
which  is  the  story  of  a  child,  many  years  have 
set  their  seal  to  these  spiritual  revolutions,  some 
of  which  date  back  to  the  quarter  century  mark. 

It  will  be  obvious  that  the  identity  of  the 
heroes  and  heroines  is  not  disclosed — to  them 
the  past  is  a  closed  book,  opened  only  for  the 
glory  of  the  Divine  Hand  by  whom  life's  his- 
tory has  been  rewritten. 

A.  L.  P. 


Contents 

I. 

The  Incorrigibles        .        .        .15 

II. 

To-MoRROw's  Man 

30 

III. 

A  Son  of  Abraham 

.      41 

IV. 

Broken  Womanhood 

61 

V. 

The  Bridge  Builder 

69 

VI. 

The  Co-ed    . 

91 

VII. 

K.  0.     . 

108 

VIII. 

The  Rapids  . 

127 

IX. 

The  Balloonist 

.     136 

X. 

Of  Viking  Stock 

.     154 

XI. 

The  Misfit  . 

165 

XII. 

XO923 

183 

XIII. 

Latin  America 

.     19s 

XIV. 

Wasted  Time  ? 

.    207 

13 


I 

THE  INCOREIGIBLES 

Appearing   on    the  police   blotter    over   two  hundred 
times  as  "Z).  Z)." 

"  T"  ~W  A,  ha,  ha,  ha  ! "  the  parrot's  scream 
I       I     rang  out.     "  There  goes  John  and 

"*-  -^  Clara,  and  they  are  both  drunk. 
Ha,  ha,  ha ! " 

It  is  said  that  a  parrot  only  repeats  words 
which  it  has  heard  hundreds  of  times  ;  therefore 
news  thus  circulated  is  usually  common  prop- 
erty. In  this  case  what  the  parrot  said  the 
world  knew. 

Clara  was  the  town's  permanent  humiliation, 
and  her  devoted  spouse  did  nothing  to  diminish 
the  notoriety.  Other  sinners  of  the  community, 
it  is  to  be  feared,  sank  into  undeserved  insig- 
nificance, their  misdeeds  appearing  as  mere 
peccadillos  by  the  side  of  such  high-handed 
transgressions.  The  couple  had  long  lost  all 
sense  of  shame— they  cared  only  for  the  estima- 
tion of  each  other,  for  sordid  though  it  was,  of 
15 


16  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

its  kind  theirs  was  and  had  remained  a  true 
love  match.  Their  attachment  to  each  other, 
both  in  and  out  of  jail,  became  proverbial. 

In  the  cup  of  their  dissipation  they  had  long 
drowned  all  social  disparity,  but  those  who 
noted  Clara's  delicately-formed  hand  and,  when 
unembellished  by  profanity,  her  excellent  Eng- 
lish, conjectured  a  very  different  upbringing 
for  her.  In  a  neighbouring  city  she  had  in- 
deed been  educated  at  a  select  private  school, 
and  at  this,  the  time  of  her  degradation,  her 
brothers  were  professional  men ;  but  it  was 
pride  and  not  shame  which  kept  Clara  silent  re- 
garding her  relatives  and  antecedents. 

The  attraction  of  opposites  probably  ac- 
counted for  this  matrimonial  alliance.  In 
three  weeks  fi^om  the  hour  of  first  acquaintance 
the  two  were  man  and  wife,  John  bringing  his 
bride  for  her  dowry  a  ten  dollar  pension  and  an 
insatiate  appetite  for  drink.  Up  till  her  mar- 
riage Clara's  only  taste  of  liquor  had  been  a  sip 
from  her  father's  wine  glass,  and  the  young 
husband  little  knew  the  thirst  he  awakened 
when,  coming  home  on  wash  day  to  find  Clara's 
fair  hair  hanging  in  moist  curls  around  her  ex- 
hausted face,  he  suggested : 


THE  INCOREIGIBLES  17 

"  A  drop  of  whiskey  would  help  you  through 
wash  days,  my  girl." 

The  advice  taken,  that  drop  of  whiskey  did 
much  more  than  help  Clara  through  wash  day. 
It  helped  her  through  her  savings,  through 
every  instinct  of  birth  and  every  barrier  of 
breeding  ;  it  helped  her  out  of  her  home,  and 
out,  far  out,  on  the  dreary  way  of  a  drunkard's 
degradation  and  destitution.  In  a  few  months 
after  that  first  drink,  Clara  had  caught  up  her 
husband  on  the  downward  road,  passed  him, 
and  was  soon  dragging  him  after  her  into 
further  depths,  for  whether  for  weal  or  woe 
neither  would  let  the  other  out  of  sight. 

On  the  police  blotter  their  names  broke  all 
records,  appearing  over  two  hundred  times 
with  the  same  comment,  "Drunk  and  Dis- 
orderly." To  this  degree  of  D.  D.  they  were 
certainly  entitled,  for  however  reserved  in  their 
rare  intervals  of  sobriety,  one  glass  of  whiskey 
loosened  babel  within  them,  and  night  and  day 
were  made  hideously  noisy  by  the  rejoicingly 
naughty  pair.  The  local  press  referred  to 
Clara's  lung  power  as  "  the  champion  howler," 
and  one  of  her  piercing  yells  in  jail  is  said  to 
have  so  unnerved  a  boatman  passing  on  the  river 


18  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

that  he  almost  wrecked  his  craft  on  the  abut- 
ments of  the  bridge.  Nor  were  her  muscles  far 
behind  her  lungs — not  for  nothing  had  she  been 
parented  by  the  spartan  blend  of  Irish  and 
Pennsylvania  Dutch,  and  with  her  blood  on  fire 
with  whiskey  she  was  a  tough  handful  to  arrest. 
It  was  almost  a  civic  event  for  one  to  be  in  jail 
without  the  other. 

"  I  hear  you  have  brought  Clara  in,"  would 
be  the  warden's  comment.  "  Well,  get  ready 
for  John — he'll  not  be  long  following." 

Both  of  them  many  times  deliberately  broke 
the  law,  so  that  the  other  should  not  be  incar- 
cerated alone. 

But  when  their  crimes  carried  them  further, 
the  penitentiary  was  not  so  easy  a  problem,  for 
here,  unlike  the  city  jail,  their  legal  tie  could 
not  hold  them  together.  Thirteen  terms  Clara 
served  in  such  durance  vile,  and  John  eleven, 
and  only  once  did  they  manage  to  outwit  their 
jailors  by  a  meeting.  Clara  was  on  some  errand 
for  the  matron  within  the  grounds  of  the  insti- 
tution, when  she  heard  her  name  called  from 
behind  a  wood-pile,  and  the  next  minute  she 
was  in  John's  arms.  In  the  penitentiary  every 
window  has  an  eye  as  well  as  every  wall  an  ear, 


THE  INCOEEIGIBLES  19 

and  the  matron  received  Clara  with  a  face  of 
frozen  horror  and  a  mouth  of  steel. 

"  But,  ma'am,  he's  my  husband,"  explained  the 
prisoner. 

"  That  makes  no  difference,"  said  the  matron 
sternly.  "  You  are  a  prisoner  here,  not  a  wife. 
Never  let  it  happen  again." 

If  one  was  in  freedom  the  liberation  of  the 
other  was  an  incentive  to  keep  sober  till  the 
fine  was  paid  which  would  reunite  them.  Both 
were  well  able  to  make  good  money  when  away 
from  their  curse,  and  the  amount  they  paid  in 
fines  would  have  purchased  one  of  the  best 
blocks  in  town  ;  but  their  love  for  toil  was  not 
unlike  that  of  the  tramp  who  said,  "  I'll  never 
work  while  I  have  my  health  ! "  With  our 
heroes  it  was  rather,  "  I'll  never  work  while  I 
have  whiskey  and  Clara  " — or  "  John  "  as  the 
case  might  be. 

Once  for  four  days  the  man  not  only  slaved 
but  starved  to  pay  his  wife's  fine.  To  a  job 
he  had  procured  on  the  roads  he  carried  each  day 
an  empty  dinner  pail,  appeasing  his  hunger  by 
unripe  wayside  fruit  and  the  satisfying  thought 
that  it  was  for  Clara's  sake.  He  was  proud 
indeed  when  he  walked  away  from  the  peni- 


20  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

tentiary  with  the  object  of  his  self-sacrifice  on 
liis  arm,  who  exclaimed  as  soon  as  the  last  gate 
clicked  behind  them : 

"  Oh,  John  dear,  they've  worked  me  dread- 
fully hard,  and  it's  awfully  dry  I  am." 

And  what  the  fine  had  left  of  John's  hard 
earnings  soon  brought  them  both  again  to  in- 
toxication, and  again  to  jail ! 

But  so  long  as  he  lives,  John  will  always 
feel  that  he  deserved  one  more  jailing  than  he 
had,  and  that  would  have  been  a  long  sentence. 
Despite  the  unbroken  front  of  good  fellowship 
which  the  two  maintained  for  the  world's  eye, 
the  wretched  hovel  for  which  they  travestied 
the  name  of  home  was  the  scene  of  many 
brutal  combats.  When  whiskey  drove  from 
their  hearts  all  idols  but  itself,  Clara  did  her 
share  of  the  fighting,  but  being  usually  the  more 
intoxicated  as  well  as  the  less  quarrelsome  she 
commonly  came  in  for  the  worse  beating.  One 
night  the  black  wing  of  murder  brushed  their 
door — its  trace  is  still  left  upon  the  floor,  for 
though  Clara  tried  many  times  to  scrub  the  evi- 
dence away  she  never  succeeded  in  efi'acing  it. 
"  They  say  you  cannot  get  human  blood  out  of 
wood,"  she  explains.     It  was  her  own  blood. 


THE  mCOEEIGIBLES  21 

This  particular  altercation  began  over  a 
bottle  of  whiskey — the  last  in  the  house.  As 
usual  they  had  shared  it  together — but  John, 
already  "  well-soused,"  declared  she  had  drunk 
it  all,  and  flew  at  her  in  fury.  Clara  fought  like 
an  animal  mth  teeth  and  nails,  but  John  broke 
the  bottle  on  her  head,  and  with  the  drunken 
yell,  "  I've  settled  yer  !  "  threw  himself  on  the 
wretched  bed  and  slept.  When  he  woke  she 
had  dragged  herself  beside  him,  bruised  and 
battered  almost  beyond  recognition,  and  cov- 
ered with  blood. 

"  Told  you  the  whiskey  would  do  for  you 
some  time,  old  girl,"  he  said  with  a  maudlin 
attempt  at  endearment. 

"  It  wasn't  the  whiskey  made  this  hole  in 
my  head,  John,"  she  answered.     "  It  was  you." 

The  shock  sobered  him  at  once,  and  he  burst 
into  tears. 

"  Oh,  Clara,"  he  cried,  "  if  I  done  that  to 
you,  and  I  guess  I  did,  you  ought  to  send  me 
to  State  prison.  For  five  cents  I'd  give  my- 
self up." 

But  woman-like  she  hid  his  crime,  though 
erysipelas  followed  the  wound  and  she  nearly 
died.     Two  years  afterwards  she  pulled  a  piecd 


22  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEH 

of  the  bottle's  glass  out  of  her  head,  and  the 
deep  scars  she  will  never  lose. 

Those  twenty-two  drunken  years  were  not 
without  attempts  to  straighten  up,  but  each 
was  doomed  to  dismal  and  swift  failure.  Local 
philanthropists  had  yearned  and  toiled  over 
them  until  made  to  feel  that  words  were  waste 
breath  upon  these  incorrigibles.  A  generous 
clergyman  sought  in  his  own  and  original  way 
to  remove  the  town's  standing  reproach.  He 
interviewed  John  and  Clara,  and  promised  to 
buy  them  a  house  and  lot  if  they  would  keep 
from  whiskey  six  months.  But  to  keep  from 
whiskey  six  days  would  have  been  a  superhuman 
task  for  them  at  this  time,  and  the  good  man's 
great  opportunity  dropped  out  of  sight,  and 
left  scarcely  a  ripple  upon  their  drunken 
memories.  It  was  the  general  opinion  that 
they  were  hopelessly  past  all  impression. 

Once  both  had  a  spasmodic  inclination  to 
"  live  like  folks  "  and  John  bought  forty-five 
yards  of  "  factory,"  which  Clara's  quick  fingers 
soon  made  up  into  sheets  and  pillow-cases. 
She  surveyed  her  new  possessions  with  pride 
and  then  said : 

"  Oh,  John,  you  don't  know  how  badly  I  feel. 


THE  INCOEEIGIBLES  23 

If  you  don't  mind,  I'll  take  a  pair  of  sheets  and 
two  pillow-cases,  and  get  a  bottle  of  whiskey. 
That  will  be  just  two  drinks  apiece  and  then 
we'll  quit." 

Of  course  John  acquiesced.  The  sheets  were 
pawned,  the  whiskey  drunk,  and  Clara  said : 

"  Oh,  John,  I  don't  feel  any  better  than  be- 
fore I  drank  that  mouthful.  If  you  don't 
mind,  I'll  take  another  pair  and  get  us  another 
drink." 

John  growled  that  he  did  not  care — he  could 
lie  on  the  bare  mattress  as  well  as  she  could. 

Before  night  fell  they  had  drunk  up  every 
one  of  the  forty-five  yards  of  "  factory  " ! 

Without  any  exception  everything  that  the 
couple  owned  was  pledged  for  whiskey — Clara's 
wedding  ring  early  sharing  this  fate.  One 
small  inexpensive  treasure  the  poor  creature 
pawned  and  redeemed  over  and  over  again — a 
little  apron  given  her  by  a  lady  of  the  town  one 
Christmas.  Something  in  the  whiteness  and 
neatness  of  the  trifle  appealed  to  Clara  and  she 
never  lost  track  of  it. 

"  I've  raised  more  dollars  than  I  can  count 
on  that  apron,"  she  says,  "  but  I  always  man- 
aged somehow  to  redeem  it  after  a  spree." 


24  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

Twice  during  that  long  night  of  dissipation 
did  Clara  emerge  for  a  few  short  weeks  into 
the  sanity  of  her  womanhood.  That  was  when 
maternity  came  to  her,  and  with  the  birth  of 
each  babe  she  vowed  she  would  have  done  with 
drink  forever.  But  what  vitality  could  such 
offspring  know — their  feeble  flames  of  existence 
soon  flickered  out,  and  the  mother  abandoned 
herself  to  such  comfort  as  could  be  found  in 
her  curse. 

Thus  the  passing  of  the  years  pressed  them 
lower  and  lower  in  the  social  scale  until  they 
were  shunned  and  scorned  by  all  except  each 
other.  In  looks  and  living  they  became  less  and 
less  human.  The  sacred  temple  of  their  bodies 
was  more  and  more  defaced  without  and  within. 
For  years  they  never  bathed,  while  whiskey 
devoured  their  vitals.  When  it  was  unprocur- 
able they  drank  plain  alcohol.  They  ate  little 
or  nothing  ;  a  box  of  crackers  would  keep  the 
two  in  food  three  weeks  ;  all  and  every  craving 
was  satiated  in  drink. 

Then  the  doom  of  the  inebriate  fell  upon  the 
man,  and  for  days  he  writhed  in  a  delirium  of 
torment,  Clara  cowering  over  him  in  horror 
while  she  fortified  her  own  courage  by  more 


THE  INCOEEIGIBLES  25 

and  yet  more  whiskey.  When  at  last  he 
emerged  from  the  snaky  coil,  he  turned  a 
shaken  face  to  his  wife  and  gasped  : 

"  Clara,  I've  got  to  finish  with  drink  or  it'll 
finish  me.  You'll  have  to  get  somebody  else  to 
drink  with  you." 

"  Sure  I'll  give  it  up  too,  honey,"  she  assented, 
half  drunk  at  the  time.  "  I'll  promise  anything 
you  like,  if  you  will  go  with  me  somewhere 
to-night." 

John  swore  he  would  follow  her  to  perdition, 
and  Clara  confided  to  him  her  plan  for  their 
latest  spree. 

That  night  the  chief  of  police  met  the  couple 
going  up-town  arm  in  arm,  John  still  shaky 
after  his  sickness,  Clara  with  just  enough  on 
board  to  cause  trouble. 

"  Where  are  you  off  to  ?  "  said  the  kindly 
oflBcial,  who  had  more  than  once  himself  taken 
them  home  rather  than  arrest  them. 

"  We're  going  up  to  see  the  new  Army  that's 
come  to  town,"  said  Clara. 

"  You'll  get  run  in  if  you  go  up  there,"  said 
the  chief.  Clara  had  only  once  been  inside  of 
a  church  in  thirty  years,  and  then  had  had  to  be 
forcibly  removed  by  a  policeman. 


26  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

"  "Well,"  said  Clara, "  I  guess  if  I  stay  out  I'll 
get  run  in  just  the  same,  so  I  may  as  well  go 
anyway." 

But  to  her  own  astonishment  she  sat  through 
the  meeting  almost  in  silence.  She  listened  to 
the  simple  heartfelt  words  and  beautiful  sing- 
ing, and  something  new  and  strange  began  to 
work  away  at  something  else  in  her  breast 
which  she  had  long  forgotten  she  owned.  Yet 
her  awakened  conscience  did  not  prevent  her 
wrath  rising  as  she  saw  John  lay  a  silver  piece 
in  the  collection  plate. 

"You  old  fool,"  she  growled  in  a  very 
audible  whisper,  "  throwing  away  our  last 
quarter  when  we  needed  it  for  whiskey !  Oh, 
if  I  only  had  you  outside ! " 

"  You'd  get  run  in  then  for  sure,  Clara,"  re- 
turned John  smiling  in  his  security. 

But  Clara  had  been  run  in  for  the  last  time. 

A  miracle  has  been  described  as  something 
beyond  human  power  and  we  do  not  hesitate  to 
designate  as  supernatural  the  events  of  that 
week.  For  twenty-two  years  this  woman  had 
been  the  slave  of  alcoholism  in  its  worst  form, 
until  mentally  and  physically  she  was  saturated 
with  it,  and  those  who  had  exhausted  every 


TH5:  IKCOiJEIGIBLES  27 

means,  ot  :^eformation  "upon  her  mercifully  de- 
clared her  curse  to  have  become  an  incurable 
disease.  Any  newly  arrived  philanthropists 
who  essayed  an  interest  in  her  had  been  warned 
not  to  squander  such  upon  one  who  the  whole 
town  had  regarded  for  many  years  as  absolutely 
hopeless. 

Imagine  this  outcast  suddenly  rising  from 
the  moral  mire  which  for  years  had  obliterated 
her  womanhood,  imagine  her  throwing  the  last 
whiskey  bottle  out  of  her  door  and  never  bring- 
ing another  into  it,  imagine  her  setting  about 
with  her  husband  to  rebuild  the  home  which 
had  been  wrecked  almost  from  its  establish- 
ment and  you  will  have  some  idea  of  the  trans- 
formation which  astonished  and  finally  con- 
vinced an  incredulous  community. 

"  Just  one  of  Clara's  whims,"  they  said  at 
first,  but  as  the  whim  outlived  days  into  weeks, 
and  passed  from  months  into  years,  the  wonder 
and  reality  of  the  change  has  been  universally 
acknowledged. 

To  minds  out  of  tune  with  the  Infinite, 
Clara's  conversion  will  forever  remain  a  matter 
of  mystery  ;  they  are,  howev^er,  bound  to  admit 
that  something  greater  than  they  or  she  or  her 


28  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

curse  must  have  kept  it  a  substantial  fact  for 
eighteen  years. 

"  God  got  hold  of  me,  and  kept  hold  of  me," 
is  Clara's  own  simple  definition.  "  I  had  often 
wanted  to  straighten  up,  though  nobody  would 
have  given  me  credit  for  it,  but  there  seemed  no 
help  or  hope  for  me  till  the  Army  came.  Their 
love  for  me  and  interest  in  me  made  me  feel 
God  cared,  and  when  I  took  my  poor  whiskey- 
soaked  heart  to  His  feet,  bless  Him,  I  found 
that  He  did." 

John's  religious  experience  has  not  been 
quite  the  radiant  one  of  his  wife,  but  like  her 
he  has  never  touched  a  droj)  of  liquor  since  the 
Army  came  to  town.  Once  after  a  bad  acci- 
dent when  many  stitches  had  to  be  taken  in  a 
terrible  scalp  wound  the  doctor  said,  "  "We  must 
give  him  a  stimulant  to  keep  up  the  heart 
action,"  but  John  overheard  and  with  a  vehe- 
mence which  threatened  to  unpick  all  the 
doctor's  sewing,  cried  : 

"No,  you  don't.  I  remember  the  rotten 
hole  I  was  dug  out  of — and  nobody  shall  throw 
me  back  into  it  again." 

Sitting  by  her  fireside  in  the  clean  and  cozy 
little  homestead  upon  which  every  cent  of  pur- 


THE  INCOEEIGIBLES  29 

chase  money  has  long  been  paid,  Clara  told  me 
the  story  of  her  life.  She  has  told  it  many 
times  upon  the  platform,  her  sweet  face  framed 
in  its  Army  bonnet. 

"  Folks  wonder  how  I  can  tell  of  those  dread- 
ful years,"  she  says,  "  and  indeed  it's  not  easy. 
But  while  it  may  help  somebody,  seems  like  I 
must  go  on  telling  it ! " 

And  the  world  said — in  the  voice  of  one  of 
Clara's  prominent  co-citizens : 

"  You  thank  us  for  our  sympathy,  but  it  is 
we  who  ought  to  thank  you  for  what  you  have 
done  for  our  town  and  our  townsfolk.  The 
Army  wliich  can  show  a  standing  case  like 
Clara's  is  a  good  deal  more  than  ornamental ; 
and  if  it  had  only  changed  that  one  life,  all  its 
years  in  our  midst  would  have  been  more  than 
worth  while." 


n 

TO-MOEEOWS  MAN 

Hungry    as    the  prairie   wolf  is   hungry^  cold  as  tht 
?nongrel  of  the  street  is  cold 

THE  adult  who  dismisses  the  unwelcome 
problem  and  escapes  the  unwelcome 
responsibility  with  the  excuse,  "  It  is 
only  a  child,"  makes  of  himself  a  spectacle  too 
foolish  for  censure.  Happily  to  ignore  the 
imperial  importance  of  natm'e's  unfinished 
handiwork  is  going  out  of  fashion ;  the  world 
is  waking  out  of  its  somnolent  indifference  to 
this  vitality  of  the  moment,  realizing  that  it 
can  no  longer  as  patriot,  parent  or  preacher 
thrust  out  of  its  consideration  hands  which 
hold  every  destiny  of  future  history.  Prepa- 
ration of  the  people  of  to-morrow  cannot  be 
safely  left  to  take  care  of  itself. 

Therefore  the  eye  which  looks  beyond  the 

confines  of  his  own  contemporary,  be  it  eye  of 

sociologist,  scientist  or  saint,  sees  in  any  child 

widely  divergent  possibilities  of  good  or  evil, 

30 


TO-MOEEOW'S  MAN  31 

and  in  any  effort,  individual  or  organized, 
which  aims  to  protect  and  develop  the  former, 
the  worthiest  work  in  the  world. 

ISTat  was  nobody's  boy.  His  parentage  was 
decidedly  conjectural ;  he  supposed  he  had  had 
a  mother  some  time,  but  he  had  his  doubts  on 
the  point — fathers  were  luxuries  altogether 
out  of  his  class  and  consideration.  Unlike  the 
usual  chronology  of  childhood  which  dates  its 
remembrance  by  domestic  epochs  assisted  by 
the  parental  memory,  I^at  divided  his  history 
simply  and  economically  into  three  periods 
which  backwards  read  as  follows :  the  time 
when  he  couldn't  jump  a^  freight ;  the  time 
when  he  couldn't  "  cadge  a  weed " ;  the 
time  when  somebody  kicked  him  and  he 
couldn't  kick  back.  Beyond  this  last  there  was 
space,  into  the  mystery  of  which  ISTat  never 
bothered  his  imagination  to  enter.  One  thing 
is  certain :  he  had  never  had  a  home,  and  his 
vocabulary  held  as  little  synonym  for  the  word 
as  that  of  a  native  Patagonian. 

To  say  that  he  was  lonely  or  unhappy  would 
be  overstating  the  case.  The  qualities  which 
create  sensibility  to  the  reverse  of  these  con- 
ditions were  entirely  undeveloped.     His  joys 


32  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

and  sorrows  were  bounded  by  the  satisfaction 
or  thwarting  of  his  appetites  as  a  young 
animal.  Questions  of  right  or  wrong  conduct 
held  no  meaning  for  him,  since  conscience  was 
wholly  negative.  He  bid  fair  to  grow  up  into 
a  perfect  specimen  of  that  new-found  species — 
the  unmoral. 

Paradoxically  his  most  human  aspect  was  his 
devilishness.  To  hide  round  the  corner  watch- 
ing a  pedestrian  fall  over  his  dropped  banana 
skin,  to  outwit  the  cunning  of  a  "  cop "  in  a 
hazardous  game  of  hide-and-seek,  to  badger 
and  bait  a  drunken  man  to  the  danger  point,  to 
jeopardize  his  own  life  and  others  laying  minia- 
ture hurdles  on  the  track  of  the  locomotive-— 
these  things  were  to  Nat  the  spice  of  life. 

Of  course  sometimes  he  was  hungry  and 
sometimes  cold — hungry  as  the  prairie  wolf  is 
hungry — cold  as  the  mongrel  of  the  street  is 
cold.  But  vagrancy  has  its  own  philosophic 
outlook,  and  even  at  ten  years  old  Nat  had 
learned  to  act  the  part  of  a  small  stoic  when 
an  empty  stomach  gnawed,  and  not  to  squeal 
over  a  frozen  foot — unless  somebody  in  a 
decent  coat  was  passing,  when  squealing  was 
both  advisable  and  profitable. 


TO-MOEROW'S  MAN  33 

There  were  other  much  less  desirable  things 
which  the  young  gamin  learned — his  school- 
room the  box  cars  in  which  he  roosted,  his 
tutors  the  professional  tramps  who  shared  the 
"  doss  " — things  in  which  his  aptitude  caused 
his  instructors  a  jSendish  glee.  They  agreed 
that  young  Nat  was  going  to  be  a  "  Uve  one  all 
right."  He  was  also  qualifying  for  early  grad- 
uation as  a  criminal,  but  of  this  the  boy  did  not 
know  and  the  men  did  not  care. 

At  well-dressed,  well-fed  children  whom  he 
passed  on  the  street  Nat  stared  curiously. 
They  might  have  been  Martians,  they  seemed 
so  remote.  But  one  day  a  connecting  link 
reached  out  and  united  the  boy's  world  of  utter 
destitution  and  friendlessness  with  a  world  of 
undreamed-of  plenty. 

The  connecting  link's  discovery  of  the  small 
waif  is  not  material  to  our  story.  Suffice  it  to 
say  that  one  wonderful  day  Nat  found  himself 
in  a  bright  warm  room  at  the  top  of  a  tall  city 
building,  looking  into  the  kindest  eyes  he  had 
ever  seen. 

"  Hully  gee,"  he  ejaculated,  "  but  you  make 
a  feUow  feel  warm  right  down  to  his  trotters." 

The  owner  of  the  kind  eyes  smiled — a  smile 


34  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN" 

with  a  tear  ia  it.  She  thought  of  her  own 
bairns  at  home  surrounded  from  their  first 
breath  with  the  warmth  of  love,  and  the  hand 
that  she  laid  on  Nat's  head  was  a  mother's 
hand.  Never  having  known  a  mother  Nat  did 
not  know  what  it  was  in  her  touch  that  thrilled 
him. 

"  Gee,"  he  said  again,  "  but  you  does  make 
a  fellow  feel  good." 

The  lady  caught  at  the  word. 

"  Would  you  like  to  be  a  good  boy,  Nat,"  she 
asked,  "  and  live  at  our  home  in  the  country 
where  Jesus  lives  and  lots  of  good  boys  and 
girls  ? "  Then  seeing  his  blank  face  she  ex- 
plained, "  A  good  boy  is  honest  and  clean  and 
does  not  tell  lies." 

"  Oh,  that's  all  right,  missus,"  cunningly 
catching  at  the  last  word.  "  I  guess  I'm  good 
enough  — I  only  tells  whoppers  when  I  has  to." 

The  Army's  guardian  for  waifs  and  strays 
has  not  had  experience  with  half  a  dozen  chil- 
dren of  her  own  and  hundreds  of  other  people's 
for  nothing.  She  saw  that  surroundings  would 
preach  much  quicker  and  better  than  any  verbal 
sermon,  and  without  any  more  embarrassing 
questions  as  to  his  morals  Nat  was  despatched 


TO-MOEEOWS  MAN  35 

to  a  country  Home.  We  use  the  capital  letter 
because  others  shared  it  with  him,  but  it  was  a 
"  really  truly  "  home  all  the  same. 

The  ten-year-old  tough  was  transported  to 
fairy-land— of  which  by  the  way  he  had  never 
even  heard.  Those  120  acres  of  grass  and  wood 
teemed  with  delightful  mystery.  The  market 
garden  was  a  field  of  magic  and  the  carpenter's 
shop  a  conjurer's  box.  Not  quite  so  enchant- 
ing seemed  the  schoolroom  with  its  discipline, 
when  the  unrestrained  atom  of  vagrancy  at 
cost  of  some  struggle  to  himself  and  much 
patience  to  his  teacher  learned  to  keep  his  body 
unusually  still  and  his  mind  unusually  active. 
But  again  the  philosophy  of  his  vagabond 
apprenticeship  consoled  him  with  the  thought 
that  everything  must  have  some  drawback,  and 
the  compensations  were  many — a  bed,  softer 
and  whiter  than  he  had  imagined  anything  so 
terrestrial  could  be  made,  and  food  of  the  finest 
three  times  a  day — the  bell  which  called  to  it 
just  corresponding  to  the  call  of  something 
within  Nat's  anatomy  to  which  he  had  never 
before  been  able  to  give  regular  attention. 

"  They  seem  to  guess  when  a  fellow  wants 
grub,"  he  confided. 


36  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

But  for  his  years  he  was  old  in  many  sorts  of 
wickedness,  and  his  Army  guardians  were 
warned  that  he  might  prove  an  awkward  prob- 
lem to  manage  among  that  crowd  of  young 
people. 

One  day  there  was  a  commotion  at  his  table 
in  the  dining-room,  and  before  the  officer  in 
attendance  could  reach  the  corner,  Nat  had  one 
opponent  down  and  another  tottering,  boys 
older  and  heavier  but  no  match  for  the  little 
tough's  furious  rush.  The  two  explained  with 
great  volubility  they  "  hadn't  said  nothin'  to 
nobody  "  ;  they  had  only  "  kicked  "  over  so  much 
rice  pudding, 

Nat  was  already  back  in  his  place  and  busy 
with  his  dinner,  but  halted  his  heavily-laden 
spoon  on  one  of  its  journeys  to  say  in  disgust : 

"  If  yer  don't  get  a  licking  it  ain't  'cause  you 
deserve  none.  Youse  fellows  don't  know  when 
you  has  it  good.  You  had  ought  to  have  slept 
in  a  box  car  and  root  round  for  yer  scraps — 
then  you'd  think  this  was  some  eats." 

And  there  are  those  who  say  that  a  child 
has  no  sense  of  appreciation ! 

When  the  motherly  officer  who  had  under- 
taken his  case  visited  the  home,  she  scarcely 


TO-MOEEOW'S  MAN  37 

recognized  the  plump,  rosy  cheeked  youngster 
for  the  scrawny  little  street  urchin  whom  she 
had  interviewed  in  her  oifice.     She  asked  : 

"  Are  you  lonely  here,  Nat  ?  " 

"  I  guess  ?io^,"  with  emphasis.  "  How  could 
a  fellow  be  lonely  with  all  them  flowers  and 
trees  and  chickens — and  " — a  wave  of  the  arm 
indicating  the  entire  estate — "  and  all  of  every- 
thing ?  " 

And  what  about  the  small  soul? — for  the 
religion  of  the  Salvation  Army  is  ubiquitous  in 
its  work  for  all  ages  as  well  as  all  classes. 
When  Nat  arrived  he  early  displayed  his 
heathendom,  and  incidentally  his  retentive 
memory,  by  remarking  to  one  of  the  staff  : 

"  I  reckon  I've  sized  most  of  you  up,  but  I 
ain't  set  eyes  on  that  Man  yet." 

"  What  man  ?  "  asked  the  officer. 

"  Why,  that  fellow  called  Jesus,"  answered 
the  child.  "  The  lady  told  me  He  hung  out 
here." 

Then,  very  simply  and  lovingly,  the  story  of 
the  Good  Shepherd  was  told  for  the  first  time 
to  this  most  ignorant  lamb,  and  as  time  went 
on  the  quick  little  brain  began  to  understand 
that  Some  One  beyond  the  sky  watched  both 


38  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

bad  boys  and  good,  and  that  it  made  a  lot  of 
difference  to  Him  and  to  oneself  which  one 
might  be.  But  an  ineffaceable  object  lesson  of 
human  love  won  ISTat's  heart  for  his  Heavenly- 
Father. 

One  day  Nat  was  taken  sick.  His  head 
ached,  his  hands  burned,  and  his  throat  hurt  so 
much  that  he  could  not  eat  his  supper,  which 
hurt  him  in  his  feelings.  The  doctor  was 
called,  and  his  one  word,  "  Diphtheria,"  made 
the  matron  turn  pale  as  she  thought  of  her  big 
little  brood,  Nat's  fever  was  already  high  and 
the  public  hospital  some  distance. 

"  Couldn't  I  take  care  of  him  in  our  own  sick 
ward  ?  "  she  asked. 

The  doctor  looked  relieved  yet  anxious. 

"  You  can  if  you  are  willing  to  be  shut  away 
with  the  boy  for  two  months." 

So  it  happened  that  when  Nat  awoke  out  of 
what  had  seemed  a  very  long  and  very  bad 
dream  he  found  the  quiet,  gentle  face  bending 
over  him.  Being  sick  was  rather  jolly,  he 
thought,  for  he  had  no  idea  how  seriously  ill 
he  had  been,  and  enjoyed  being  petted  and 
amused  as  every  boy  does,  and  as  every  boy 
pretends  he  does  not.     But  one  day  his  nurse 


TO-MOEROW'S  MAl>r  39 

frowned — on  his  generosity  it  was  too.  "While 
her  back  was  turned,  he  had  thrown  the  window 
open  and  shouting  to  some  boys  below  to  hold 
their  caps  and  catch,  he  was  about  to  throw  out 
to  them  a  handful  of  his  pictui'es  and  games. 
She  explained  that  he  must  not  do  this,  because 
he  had  been  very  sick  and  that  anything  that 
he  had  touched  might  make  other  boys  sick 
too.  Annoyance,  wonder  and  horror  succeeded 
each  other  in  Nat's  face. 

"  But,  nurse,  you've  been  shut  up  with  me  all 
the  time,  and  touched  me  ever  so  often.  You 
might  have  got  sick  yourself." 

Taking  the  weak,  terribly  light  frame  in  her 
arms  she  told  him  that  God  had  taken  care  of 
her — and  that  anyway  she  had  been  quite 
willing  to  run  the  risk  to  take  care  of  Nat. 
She  concluded : 

"  You  must  thank  Him  for  making  you  well, 
dear  boy,  and  for  keeping  me  from  getting  sick. 
God  has  been  so  good  to  you.  Don't  you  want 
to  love  and  live  for  Him  ?  " 

Nat's  reply  was  characteristic, 

"  You  bet ! "  he  said.  "  If  He's  half  as  good 
as  you  He'll  do." 

There  was  no  blasphemy  behind  the  sincere  if 


40  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

crude  confession  of  faith,  as  the  new  conscience 
and  high  standard  of  right  and  wrong  with 
which  ISTat  came  forth  from  his  sick  room 
demonstrated.  And  because  they  are  what 
they  are,  his  Salvationist  guardians  pin  as  much 
faith  to  his  love  for  prayer  as  to  his  aptitude  in 
the  schoolroom  and  market-garden  in  their 
hopes  for  this  man  of  to-morrow. 


Ill 

A  SON  OF  ABEAHAM 

A  Jew  either  works  others^  or  is  himself  worked — to 
the  death 

JEWISH  dog,  take  that ! " 
A  heavy  stone  thrown  with  the  force 
of  hatred  emphasized  the  words,  and  a 
curse  which  lost  none  of  its  horror,  because 
hurled  by  a  child  against  a  child. 

One  against  many,  the  little  Hebrew  stood  at 
bay,  his  dark  face  purple  with  rage,  his  small 
hands  clenched,  while  his  tongue  spat  venom  at 
his  tormentors  who  from  their  ambush  among 
the  waving  wheat  mocked  him  in  safety. 
With  his  blood's  ascendant  trait,  Ezra  was 
not  so  much  crushed  by  the  cruelty  as  stung  by 
the  cunning  which  outwitted  him.  Emboldened 
by  his  impotence  to  retaliate,  the  hidden 
cowards  renewed  their  fire ;  many  missiles 
missed  their  mark,  but  a  huge  brick  from  the 
hand  of  a  bully  found  the  boy's  forehead,  and 

with  a  savage  yell  he  fell  unconscious  to  the 
41 


42  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

ground.  Boy's  or  man's,  the  hand  which  un- 
seen fells  another  is  rarely  brave  enough  to  dis- 
cover what  damage  it  has  wrought,  and  when 
stunned  and  sore  Ezra  struggled  to  his  feet,  he 
was  alone. 

Half  blinded  with  blood  and  rage,  he  threw 
himself  into  the  serenity  of  his  mother's  room, 
and  finding  the  healing  haven  of  her  breast 
gasped  out  in  sobbing  incoherence  the  story  of 
his  wrongs. 

Little  did  she  know  that  her  face  of  swarthy 
beauty  held  all  the  brooding  significance  of  a 
Madonna's,  as  she  bent  over  her  bruised  first- 
born, bathing,  bandaging,  and  caressing  him 
until  hysterical  sobs  died  away  in  shuddering 
sighs,  and  he  lay  in  her  arms  spent  but  quiet 
"  as  one  whom  his  mother  comforteth." 

But  when  the  quick  boyish  brain  came  into 
its  own  again  with  the  vehement  question, 
"  Why  should  these  things  be  done  to  us  ?  "  the 
pride  of  her  blood  which  untainted  ran  back  to 
the  best  of  Judah  drove  all  gentleness  from 
her  voice  and  face,  and  in  words  harsh  as  a 
whip  lash  she  told  him  the  story  of  the  Im- 
postor, whose  clever  deception  had  deceived  a 
world,  and  caused  all  the  wrongs  which  had 


A  SON  OF  ABEAHAM  43 

befallen  the  chosen  people  of  Jehovah.  It  was, 
she  said,  in  the  name  of  this  Man  Jesus  that 
these  Christian  boys  laid  wait  for  him  in  the 
wheat  fields,  and  flung  the  brick  which  might 
have  killed  him. 

"  Then,"  exclaimed  the  child  jumping  from 
her  arms  and  stamping  his  foot,  "  this  Man 
Jesus  is  my  Enemy,  and  I  hate  Him  forever 
and  forever  ! " 

The  mother  scarcely  caught  the  vehement 
words,  nor  noticed  the  immediate  fruit  of  the 
seed  she  had  sown.  Already  the  anger  had 
faded  from  her  face,  replaced  by  the  mystic  calm 
which  only  a  daughter  of  Miriam's  ever  wears, 
and  her  eyes  shone  with  prophetic  exaltation 
as  she  murmured  : 

"  But  such  persecution  is  not  eternal,  my  son. 
There  comes  a  day  when  the  horn  of  Judah 
shall  again  be  exalted,  and  the  way  of  the  un- 
godly shall  be  lost  in  confusion.  Patience,  my 
Ezra — it  will  be  all  right  for  thee  and  thine  when 
the  Messiah  comes." 

The  boy  gazed  with  awe  upon  her  mood  of 
transfiguration,  but  outside  the  door  his  puny 
fists  again  clenched,  his  teeth  ground  like  an 
animal's  and  he  hissed  to  himself  : 


U  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

"  He  is  my  Enemy,  and  I'll  hate  Him  for- 
ever." 

It  was  not  the  first  time  his  school  fellows 
had  waylaid  him  in  the  treacherous  wheat,  not 
the  first  time  his  body  had  borne  marks  of  their 
vindictiveness,  and  the  molten  anger  of  that 
childish  vow  hardened  year  by  year  into  a 
steeled  hatred  towards  the  Christians'  Christ. 

Yet,  cradled  as  he  had  been  in  its  most  rigor- 
ous orthodoxy,  Judaism  did  not  retain  a  strong 
hold  upon  Ezra's  heart — the  livest  phase  of  his 
religion  was  his  hatred  of  Gentiles.  Sometimes 
from  her  place  in  the  women's  gallery  in  the 
synagogue  the  mother  looked  down  with 
troubled  eyes  upon  the  stern  frown  of  her  son. 
Little  did  she  imagine  the  fires  of  vengeance  to 
which  she  had  put  the  torch  years  since  in  his 
boyish  heart.  It  only  seemed  to  her  as  if  of 
the  mighty  economy  of  the  Mosaic  Law  he  had 
ears  only  for  the  curses  of  Ebal  and  no  hearing 
for  the  blessings  of  Gerizim. 

Upon  the  Day  of  Atonement  a  youth  of 
seventeen  turned  with  contemptuous  steps  from 
the  temple  of  his  fathers.  He  knew  something 
of  the  crooked  lives  which  spent  three  hundred 
and  sixty-four   days  in  sin,  and  then  squared 


A  SON  OF  ABRAHAM  45 

matters  with  the  Judge  of  the  Universe  by  one 
day's  fasting  and  confession. 

"  Jehovah  lets  His  accounts  run  too  long," 
sneered  Ezra,  and  from  that  hour  his  chosen 
god  was  that  other  Hebrew  divinity — gold. 

Twelve  months  later,  the  birds  of  prey  which 
haunt  the  docking  of  immigrants  flapped  their 
wings  vainly  against  the  self-suflB.ciency  of  the 
young  Austrian  whose  innate  distrust  of  all 
men  made  it  hard  to  win  his  acquaintance. 
Ezra's  one  credential  was  a  letter  of  introduc- 
tion to  a  questionable  female  member  of  New 
York  society,  his  entire  linguistic  equipment 
the  mastery  of  several  European  tongues  which 
did  not  include  one  word  of  English,  and  his 
sole  wealth  a  ten  dollar  gold  piece  sewn  for 
safety  into  his  vest  pocket.  It  was  character- 
istic of  the  young  man  that  it  was  eight  months 
later  before  he  pulled  out  the  stitches  of  his 
bank  I 

Any  student  of  the  Hebrew  race  is  struck  by 
the  significant  fact  that  a  Jew  either  works 
others  or  is  himself  worked  to  the  death.  Ezra 
soon  made  personal  and  painful  experience  with 
the  sweating  system,  though  his  apprenticeship 
was  not  served  over  coats  and  trousers. 


46  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

"He's  a  greeny  and  a  Sheeny."  The  pro- 
prietor of  the  gambling  house  was  proud  of  his 
little  joke.  "  We'll  get  our  money's  worth  out 
of  him  !  " 

They  did.  Ezra's  hours  were  from  six  in  the 
morning  tiU  midnight  with  occasional  over- 
time ;  for  this  he  received  the  proprietor's  mu- 
nificence of  ten  dollars  a  month  with  board 
thro^vn  in,  more  often  at  him.  But  one  must 
rise  earlier  than  six  in  the  morning  to  get  ahead 
of  a  son  of  Abraham.  He  also  was  "  getting 
his  money's  worth  " — getting  it  without  spend- 
ing any.  From  the  men  after  whom  he  swept 
and  dusted  he  absorbed  the  first  principles  of 
professional  gambling ;  from  the  newspapers 
they  left  unheeded  for  the  cards  he  picked  up 
the  language  which  would  enable  him  to  ply 
their  trade  with  a  velocity  which  astonished  his 
associates,  and  reversed  the  proprietor's  desig- 
nation to  "That  Sheeny's  no  greeny,  you 
bet ! " 

When  quitting  time  came,  he  walked  out 
with  his  entire  wages  unspent  in  his  pocket, 
nearly  $100.  The  weight  of  his  fortune  was 
sobering  on  Ezra's  spirits ;  he  felt  himself  a  man 
of  means  at  last.     His  hand  was  continually 


A  SON  OF  ABEAHAM  47 

pressed  to  his  left  breast  as  if  in  pain,  an  in- 
voluntary action  borne  of  an  insatiable  desire  to 
feel  the  pleasing  crackle  of  the  paper  money 
concealed  there.  Yet  the  occasion  was  one 
worthy  of  celebration,  and  Ezra  made  up  his 
mind  to  be  reckless.  The  brilliant  store  win- 
dows beckoned  to  him  alluringly,  ice-cream 
parlours  and  show  booths  flaunted  their  attrac- 
tions in  his  face,  while  saloons  and  dance-halls 
were  not  without  their  fascinations.  At  last  he 
stopped  at  a  street  corner,  and  not  without  re- 
luctance parted  with  one  of  his  crisp  ten  dol- 
lar bills,  receiving  in  exchange  nine  dollars  and 
ninety-eight  cents.  Ezra's  celebration  had  been 
two  cents  for  apples  ! 

But  in  his  objection  to  money-spending  Ezra 
more  than  all  hated  to  pay  it  out  for  religion. 
Only  once  did  he  hesitate  upon  the  steps  of  a 
synagogue.  It  was  again  the  Day  of  Atone- 
ment, and  old  associations  and  early  training, 
outliving  the  infidelity  of  his  later  years,  made 
him  seek  a  Jewish  house  of  worship.  It  was  a 
fashionable  synagogue  on  a  fashionable  street, 
and  a  uniformed  official  halted  Ezra  upon  the 
threshold  saying : 

"  Tickets,  please." 


48  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

"With  a  disgusted  curse  the  young  man  turned 
on  his  heel. 

"  Guess  they  make  a  fellow  pay  even  for  his 
religion  here,"  he  growled.  "  Then  I  don't 
want  it." 

He  never  entered  a  synagogue  again. 

Seven  years  later,  the  Pacific  rollers,  rushing 
up  through  the  Golden  Gate  to  break  in  noisy 
chorus  upon  the  beach,  played  around  the  quiet 
feet  of  a  solitary  figure  reclining  as  if  in  reverie 
upon  the  Cliff  House  strand.  The  waves  which 
have  hid  so  many  mysteries  and  washed  out  so 
many  problems  left  him  undisturbed  and  un- 
challenged. Not  so  visitors  to  the  famous 
resort  who  looked  with  curiosity  at  the  quiet 
figure  so  often  to  be  found  upon  the  sand. 
Sometimes  he  would  stretch  himself  to  his  full 
height  and  removing  coat  and  cap  throw  his 
shoulders  back  to  the  breeze,  inhaling  the  ozone 
with  which  it  was  laden. 

"  There  stands  a  sensible  man ! "  exclaimed  a 
tourist.  "  A  true  lover  of  nature,  I  am  sure. 
See  how  he  bares  his  head  to  the  ocean — letting 
Neptune  blow  all  the  cobwebs  from  his  brain." 

"  Perhaps  there  are  some  men  who  would 
prefer    he    let  some  cobwebs  remain  in  his 


A  SON  OF  ABEAHAM  49 

brain,"  was  the  reply  of  the  better  informed. 
"  That  man  may  be  a  lover  of  Nature  but  he  is 
a  foe  to  human  nature.  He  is  a  professional 
gambler,  and  hell  help  the  man  who  falls  into 
his  clutches." 

It  was  indeed  a  professional  gambler — it  was 
Ezra.  With  assiduous  application  he  had 
mastered  every  ruse  and  trick  of  his  trade,  and 
with  the  cunning  of  his  species  resolved  to 
outdo  the  best  by  holding  every  faculty  sub- 
servient to  his  game.  A  regular  visit  to  the 
Cliff  House  where  he  appeared  to  commune 
with  ISTature  was  his  systematic  preparation  for 
his  profession.  Every  Friday  he  left  the  city 
for  the  seaside,  spending  the  time  in  the  open, 
breathing  in  the  strong  air,  eating  little,  drink- 
ing nothing,  sleeping  much  and  letting  his  mind 
lie  absolutely  fallow.  Then  late  Saturday  he 
returned  to  town,  going  straight  to  the  gam- 
bling room  where  his  victims  were  already 
played  out  physically,  and  many  of  them  be- 
fuddled by  drink.  His  mind  was  clear,  his 
time  was  come.  Once  more  it  was  a  case  of 
"  the  hour  and  the  man."  Because  he  was  as 
cool  as  he  was  keen,  and  as  steady  as  he  was 
shrewd,  Ezra  pocketed  many  a  man's  fortune — 


50  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

with  special  satisfaction  when  it  was  from  a 
Gentile  wallet,  for  the  old  old  wound  opened 
by  that  brick  in  the  wheat  field  had  never 
wholly  healed. 

Ezra  saw  the  weak  joints  in  other  men's 
armour  and  felt  the  security  of  his  own.  He 
saw  how  soon  great  winnings  were  lost  when 
men  gave  the  rein  to  any  controlling  appetite, 
and  he  made  up  his  mind  to  focus  all  his 
powers.  The  dissipations  of  other  men,  how- 
ever, were  little  temptation  to  him — gambling 
was  his  one  passion  and  it  became  all-absorbing. 
He  ate,  drank,  slept,  dressed,  breathed  to  play 
— and  win. 

One  Saturday,  having  an  engagement  for  the 
evening,  he  started  earlier  than  usual ;  night 
came  but  he  did  not  move.  Sunday  dawned 
and  passed.  It  was  Monday  9  a.  m.  before 
he  rose  from  the  table,  having  sat  there  forty- 
three  hours.  Unshaven  and  tired  he  mingled 
with  the  crowds  on  their  way  to  work.  He 
looked  at  the  clean  faces  healthy  from  sleep 
and  ready  for  honest  toil,  and  a  great  self -dis- 
gust swallowed  for  the  moment  self-respect.  It 
was  in  one  of  these  fits  of  despondency  that  a 
name  flashed  across  his  mind  like  a  star  in  a 


A  SON  OF  ABEAHAM  61 

dark  sky — Los  Angeles — "  City  of  the  Angels." 
He  had  never  been  there  ;  he  knew  nothing  of 
it.  But  there  seemed  magic  attraction  in  the 
name.  For  four  years,  amid  much  sordid  gain- 
ing, the  word  shone  before  his  mental  vision  as 
a  talisman,  and  at  last  he  resolved  to  see  the 
city  for  himself. 

Yery  far  from  angeUc  felt  Ezra  as  he  sat  in 
his  boarding-house  that  first  Sunday  in  Los 
Angeles,  and  faced  the  problem  of  a  place 
which  shut  up  tight  one  day  in  seven.  His  lack 
of  resource  would  have  been  amusing  if  it  had 
not  been  so  pathetic.  He  appealed  to  the  land- 
lady for  suggestions. 

"  With  such  a  real  nice  room,"  she  said  sur- 
veying it  with  complacency,  "  seems  like  a  body 
might  be  contented  just  sitting  there  ;  but  folks 
that  wants  something  else  most  generally  reads 
books." 

Ezra  tried  books.  He  read  the  first  chapter 
and  the  last,  shrewdly  made  connections  be- 
tween, and  the  story  was  told.  By  this  method 
he  finished  about  a  dozen  novels  in  an  hour,  and 
again  sought  the  landlady. 

"  If  you  men  aren't  the  curiousest  creatures  ! " 
she  ejaculated.     "  'Pears  like  there  ain't  no  en- 


52  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEK 

tertaining  you  noliow.  'Why  don't  you  go  to 
the  park  ?  There's  a  band  concert  there  Sun- 
day afternoons." 

The  prospect  was  not  particularly  alluring, 
but  Ezra  had  nothing  better  to  suggest,  and 
started  out  in  the  direction  indicated.  Like  a 
drunkard  without  whiskey,  like  a  morphine 
fiend  without  dope,  like  a  glutton  without  the 
table,  is  a  professional  card-sharper  without  a 
hand  and  a  victim.  A  life  devoted  to  the 
game  of  chance  is  all  the  time  kej^ed  up  to  a 
pitch  of  unnatural  excitement ;  defraud  such  of 
its  chosen  food  even  for  an  hour,  and  existence 
becomes  at  once  indescribably  stale  and  taste- 
lessly fiat.  Ezra  was  experiencing  every 
symptom  of  the  gambler's  ennui. 

The  distant  beat  of  a  drum  brought  his 
languid  saunter  to  a  standstill.  It  came  from 
the  opposite  direction  to  which  he  was  headed. 

"  Guess  the  old  lady  must  have  told  me 
wrong,"  he  thought,  as  he  turned  on  his  heel  to 
find  a  few  blocks  distant  the  music  to  be  no 
park  concert,  but  a  few  inferior  instrumentalists 
playing  in  a  group.  Singing  followed,  and  to 
his  surprise  the  affair  proved  to  be  some  kind  of 
a  religious  meeting.     To  the  Hebrew  mind  the 


A  SON  OF  ABEAHAM  53 

idea  of  making  a  synagogue  of  the  public  street 
was  strange,  indeed  repulsive.  He  thought  to 
himself : 

"  The  Gentiles  must  be  hard  up  for  adver- 
tisement ! " 

As  he  passed  the  singing  ceased,  and  a  man 
in  the  group  stepped  into  the  ring  and  began  to 
speak.  His  first  words  halted  Ezra,  for  he  an- 
nounced himself  as  an  old  gambler  and  profli- 
gate whose  Kfe  and  heart  had  been  transfigured 
by  the  Blood  of  Christ.  An  involuntary  shud- 
der shook  the  listener's  frame  at  that  Name, 
but  the  story  held  him  like  a  spell.  Some 
power  unfelt  before  seized  him,  and  forgetting 
time  and  place  he  lost  himself  in  a  mood  of 
great  retrospection  and  of  great  remorse. 
When  he  came  to  himself,  he  stood  alone  in  the 
street,  the  distant  throbbing  of  a  drum  the  only 
evidence  of  the  scene  which  had  so  shaken  him. 
Without  a  moment's  thought  he  turned  in  the 
direction  of  the  sound,  and  began  to  run  like 
one  frenzied  towards  it. 

For  thirty-six  days  the  man  travailed  for  his 
own  soul.  A  seared  and  smothered  conscience 
sprang  up  to  torture  night  and  day ;  the  memory 
of  the  Hebraic  purity  of  his  boyhood  scorched 


64  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

by  comparison  his  later  much  stained  years. 
Yet  the  illuminating  torch  in  a  Gentile's  hand, 
and  the  Eemedy  to  which  it  pointed,  were  alike 
repugnant.  He  was  horribly  perplexed — his 
wretched  Ufe  had  forfeited  his  hold  on  old 
moorings.  He  dared  not  stretch  out  his  hand 
to  grasp  the  new. 

From  the  Army  meetings  he  could  not  keep 
away,  although  they  were  a  source  of  much 
condemnation  and  confusion  to  him.  Perhaps 
only  a  Hebrew  mind  could  understand  the 
poignancy  of  his  struggles.  "  In  the  Name  of 
Jesus "  he  was  told  to  seek  salvation — the 
Name  he  had  been  forbidden  to  utter — the 
Name  in  which  his  school  fellows  had  perse- 
cuted and  pelted  him.  Once  he  had  known 
the  Old  Testament  almost  word  for  word,  and 
of  all  its  verses  there  flared  luridly  before  his 
mental  vision  the  command,  "  Honour  thy  father 
and  thy  mother."  He  felt  they  must  turn  in 
their  graves  should  he  acknowledge  that  Jesus 
was  the  Messiah.  The  very  attitude  of  these 
prayers  was  foreign  to  one  trained  in  the  Jewish 
rubric,  which  provided  that  men  should  stand 
on  their  feet  to  approach  their  God. 

"  I  cannot  do  it — I  cannot  say  it,"  he  groaned 


A  SON  OF  ABEAHAM  55 

to  the  patient  woman  officer  pleading  with 
him.  "  I  was  raised  a  Jew  ;  I  will  die  a  Jew. 
Farewell." 

But  he  went  to  return. 

At  the  last  it  was  an  appeal  from  the  ruling 
passion  which  brought  about  the  decision.  His 
contact  with  the  Salvationists  had  awakened  in 
him  a  spirit  of  generosity  hitherto  unknown. 
As  Ezra  himself  put  it,  "I  commenced  to 
throw  my  money  away."  Every  night  the 
collection  was  enriched  by  a  dollar  from  his 
pocket.  But  his  sharp  eye  was  on  the  alert  for 
the  love  of  money  in  others.  Little  did  the  of- 
ficers know  that  he  shadowed  them  for  weeks, 
listening  to  their  conversation  on  the  street, 
hanging  round  their  quarters,  and  even  follow- 
ing them  into  the  saloons  to  discover  if  they 
were  after  money  or  the  souls  of  men  ;  for  the 
keen  though  troubled  mind  thought, "  If  gold  is 
not  their  object  then  it  surely  must  be  Divine." 
Hitherto  he  had  imagined  the  instinct  to  care 
only  for  one's  self  and  one's  own  universal,  and 
as  the  conviction  that  these  people  loved  and 
lived  and  toiled  for  the  interests  of  others  be- 
came a  fact  in  his  mind,  the  prejudice  of  a  life- 
time weakened,  and   dimly  he  conceived  the 


66  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

possibility  of  One  who  saved  others  yet  Him- 
self He  could  not  save. 

One  night  there  was  a  special  appeal  for  the 
Army's  Rescue  work,  and  in  its  aid,  at  the 
officer's  request,  Ezra  paid  five  dollars  for 
some  trifle,  not  without  hopes  that  he  would 
by  reason  of  this  be  immune  from  personal 
probings  for  the  evening.  But  not  so  ;  as  soon 
as  she  could  depute  her  platform  work  to 
another,  the  girl  was  again  beside  him,  gently, 
earnestly  pleading  as  she  endeavom-ed  to  ex- 
plain away  all  obstacles  and  rebuffs.  That 
moment  Ezra's  opposition  snapped  as  if  cut 
with  a  knife. 

"  She  knows  she  will  get  no  more  money  out 
of  me  to-night,"  he  thought,  "  yet  she  comes 
again.  She  must  really  care  for  my  soul. 
What  if  her  Christ  cares  too  ?  " 

That  was  the  beginning  of  the  end.  Ezra 
went  to  his  knees,  the  officer  with  him,  and 
incidentally  the  devil;  for  while  he  tried  to 
seek  deliverance  in  the  name  of  Jesus  evil  sug- 
gestions tauntingly  reminded  him  again  that  it 
was  in  this  Name  he  had  been  cruelly  beaten. 
Bewildered  he  rose  from  his  knees,  telling  the 
Salvationist  that  he  had  made  a  clean  sweep  of 


A  SON  OF  ABEAHAM  57 

everything,  but  that  all  was  dark.  "  Courage,'' 
she  said ;  "  the  Light  will  come,"  and  pinned 
upon  his  coat  the  Army's  badge.  It  was  a 
daring  thing  to  do,  but  subsequent  events  proved 
her  trust  was  not  misplaced,  and  as  her  spirit 
looks  down  from  the  revelation  of  another 
world  she  has  no  cause  for  regret  over  her 
action.  The  badge  lay  like  a  burning  thing 
upon  Ezra's  breast.  He  went  straight  back  to 
the  flashy  hotel  where  he  had  been  working, 
his  professional  gambling  having  ceased  with 
his  advent  at  Los  Angeles,  and  told  the  pro- 
prietor he  must  leave.  Asked  why,  the  young 
man  pointed  to  the  little  badge  and  said  sim- 

"This  business  and  your  business  don't  go 
together." 

Then  Ezra  entered  upon  his  final  Gethsemane. 
With  all  his  bridges  burned  behind  him,  with 
his  earthly  prospects  lost,  his  nefarious  profession 
abandoned,  the  faith  of  his  fathers  forsaken,  he 
yet  lacked  the  Divine  Revelation  without  which 
a  man's  religion,  however  irreproachable,  is  but 
a  mechanical  thing — without  which,  to  a  man 
of  Ezra's  long-thwarted  spiritual  cravings,  life 
would  be  a  tragedy.     Ail  next  day  he  struggled 


58  THE  SALVAGE  OF  IMEN 

alone ;  at  night  he  again  sought  the  Army  and 
one  of  the  comrades  spent  hours  trying  to  help 
him.  Till  2  a.  m.  they  walked  the  streets, 
Ezra  in  agony  crying  again  and  again : 

"  I  want  to  hold  out — God  knows  I  do — 
but  I  don't  seem  to  have  anything  to  hold  on 
to." 

Alone  in  his  room,  he  opened  his  nevrly 
purchased  Bible,  and  throwing  himself  on  his 
knees  before  it,  burst  into  passionate  supplica- 
tion. It  was  in  Hebrew  he  prayed  again  and 
again,  "  Show  me,  O  God,  show  me ; "  and 
while  he  prayed,  the  answer  came.  His  spiri- 
tual eyes  were  opened  and  with  a  clearness 
which  he  can  still  describe  but  not  explain  he 
saw,  as  Paul  of  old,  the  One  Who  he  had  been 
persecuting — saw  His  cross,  the  nails,  counted 
the  blood  drops  as  they  fell,  and  heard  a  Yoice 
saying,  "  Go  in  peace  and  sin  no  more." 

His  earnest  companion  of  the  night  before 
was  still  in  a  sound  sleep  when  there  came  a 
furious  knocking  at  his  door.  Rushing  to  his 
window,  he  saw  the  young  Hebrew  standing  in 
the  street.  His  face  was  transfigured  with  the 
Light  which  was  never  on  land  or  sea,  and  as 
the  other  raised  the  sash  he  shouted : 


A  SON  OF  ABRAHAM  59 

"Brother,  it  is  all  true.  The  Messiah  has 
come — He  has  come  to  me." 

A  knot  of  gamblers  standing  around  an  open 
air  meeting  some  years  later  were  discussing 
the  last  speaker. 

"  When  the  Army  got  him  the  gaming-table 
of  the  "West  lost  one  of  its  best  brains,"  said 
one. 

"  A  typical  Jew  in  those  days,"  returned  the 
other.  " '  To  have  and  to  hold  onto,'  eh  !  But 
I  can't  quite  make  out  his  present  game.  Folks 
say  that  he  has  given  everything  he  had  away 
— his  diamond  pin,  his  gold  watch,  his  country 
estate — and  that  he  is  working  for  fifty  cents  a 
day.  Say,  boys,  who  would  have  thought  of 
old  Ezra  doing  that  ?  " 

But  old  Ezra  was  not  doing  it.  It  was  a  new 
Ezra  who  said,  as  he  handed  himself  unreservedly 
over  to  the  work  through  which  God's  revela- 
tion had  come  to  him,  "  I  guess  He  who  carried 
those  millions  of  my  forefathers  through  the 
wilderness  is  to  be  trusted  with  my  little  all." 

Our  last  look  at  Ezra  finds  him  with  whitened 
hair  leaning  over  his  desk.  The  hour  is  late, 
as  it  often  is  with  Ezra,  but  the  bright  eyes 
and  fresh  colour  above  his  uniform  collar  give 


60  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

the  lie  to  impaired  vitality.  He  is  adcUng  up 
money,  or  rather  figures  which  represent  money 
— ^money  which  is  to  mean  bread  to  the  hungry, 
shelter  for  the  homeless,  deliverance  for  the 
bound  and  salvation  for  the  sinner.  "  It  has 
been  a  good  month,"  he  ejaculates  happily  as 
he  looks  at  the  total  of  over  seven  thousand 
dollars  brought  into  the  Army  work  through 
his  efforts,  and  then  he  turns  with  a  brighter 
smile  to  the  well-worn  Bible  always  ready  to 
his  hand,  and  finding  the  forty-fifth  chapter  of 
Jeremiah  reads  again  the  words  marked  as  his 
life's  motto  many  years  before  : 

"Seekest  thou  great  things  for  thyself  f  seek 
them  not." 


IV 
BEOKEI^  WOMANHOOD 

Seared  and  scarred  with  sin's  branding  iron 


A 


ND  now  unto  God  the  Father,  God  the 

Son  and  God  the  Holy  Ghost " 

The  preacher's  resonant  voice 
dropped  to  the  monotone  of  the  Episcopal  per- 
oration, and  there  was  the  usual  subdued  rustle 
as  the  congregation  rose  to  its  feet.  But  with 
the  benediction  more  than  the  usual  subdued 
whispering  followed — the  flutter  of  comment, 
the  stir  of  criticism. 

The  Sunday  services  had  been  dedicated  to 
the  cause  of  social  righteousness,  and  from  the 
pulpits  of  that  city  burning  words  went  forth 
to  plead  the  claims  of  purity  and  of  mercy.  At 
this  fashionable  down-town  church,  the  clergy- 
man had  eloquently  epitomized  the  subject. 
Earnestness  whether  in  learned  or  illiterate  is 
always  the  most  moving  factor  in  public  utter- 
ances, and  there  was  not  one  of  his  hearers 
61 


62  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

who  had  been  exempt  from  its  spell,  but  many 
concealed  their  involuntary  agitation  by  affect- 
ing to  be  shocked  at  his  plain  speakhig,  while 
others  professed  their  belief  that  such  a  state- 
ment of  the  case  was  grossly  exaggerated. 

"  Of  course,"  said  one  haughty  voice  during 
the  slow  progress  from  pew  to  door,  "  we  know 
such  creatures  do  exist,  but  there  was  no  need 
for  the  dear  doctor  to  bring  them  quite  so 
close  to  our  imagination — altogether  uncalled 
for." 

The  speaker  drew  her  vinaigrette  from  her 
glove  and  used  it  all  the  way  down  the  aisle, 
as  if  to  disinfect  some  foreign  element  from 
her  aristocratic  nostril.  A  few  steps  from  the 
sanctuary  door  the  vinaigrette  was  hastily 
exchanged  for  her  lorgnette,  and  after  one 
horrified  glance  my  lady  precipitately  crossed 
the  street.  The  objectionable  problem  itself 
confronted  her. 

There  in  the  gutter  lay  an  outcast  woman, 
drunk  or  drugged,  within  a  block  of  the  church 
door.  The  noonday  sun  pitilessly  exposed  the 
bedraggled  plumage  of  this  bird  of  night,  un- 
sparing the  wretched  upturned  face,  seared  and 
scarred  with  sin's  branding  iron. 


BEOKEN  WOMANHOOD  63 

The  lady  with  the  lorgnette  was  not  alone 
in  her  avoidance  of  the  unpleasant  sight.  Re- 
fined lips  cm^led  in  scorn ;  coarser  mouths 
leared  past  her. 

"  What  a  shame  for  a  woman  like  that  to  lie 
on  a  street  like  this  !  "  exclaimed  one. 

"  Poor  devil !  "  murmured  a  man,  while  an- 
other rushed  to  telephone  for  the  police  patrol. 

The  modern  priest  and  Levite  had  gone  their 
several  ways,  when  another  church-member, 
not  without  surprise  to  herself,  assumed  the 
role  of  Samaritan.  This  good  woman,  who 
was  a  practicing  physician,  half  in  speculation, 
half  in  confidence,  and  wholly  as  a  last  hope, 
called  up  the  Salvation  Army  Rescue  Home. 

Two  poke  bonnets  and  the  patrol  wagon 
arrived  simultaneously,  but  there  was  never 
any  question  as  to  which  of  the  two  had  the 
right  of  way.  The  patrol  officer  gladly  abdi- 
cated in  the  Army's  favour. 

"  She's  yours,  ladies,"  he  said  swinging  back 
on  to  the  vehicle  step.  "  Youse  people  are 
the  only  ones  for  the  likes  of  her.  Get  back 
to  the  station,  Joe.     We  ain't  wanted  here." 

Three  days  later  the  lady  physician  sat  by 
a  bed  in  the  cheerful  sick  ward  of  the  Army 


64  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

Home.  For  more  than  forty-eight  hours  the 
patient  had  writhed  in  convulsive  violence, 
during  which  trying  period  an  Army  nurse 
had  not  left  her  side.  Now  she  lay  in  still  ex- 
haustion. The  doctor  looked  curiously  at  the 
picture  of  broken  womanhood  before  her,  and 
then  as  curiously  upon  the  vision  of  clean 
sanity  in  uniformed  white  bending  over  the 
other  side  of  the  bed.  She  wondered  what 
would  come  of  the  connection  between  these 
two  types  which  she  herself  had  effected.  The 
Army's  sincerity  had  long  since  claimed  the 
doctor's  admiration,  but  she  had  been  frankly 
sceptical  of  its  methods,  and  in  her  own  mind 
had  resolved  to  make  this  a  test  case. 

The  girl  stirred  and  with  a  heavy  sigh 
opened  her  eyes  in  consciousness.  Then  the 
heavy  lids  again  fell  and  she  groaned  : 

"  Nobody  cares  for  me.  I  had  it  gay  enough 
once,  but  even  the  devil  won't  have  anything 
to  do  with  me  now.  Why  didn't  you  let  me 
die  and  be  done  with  ?    Nobody  cares." 

The  Salvationist's  lips  parted  to  reply  in 
pity,  but  the  doctor  forestalled  her. 

"  But  I  think  somebody  must  care  for  you 
still,"  said  the  even  professional  tones.     "  Open 


BEOKEN  WOMANHOOD  65 

youi'  eyes  again ;  look  at  this  white  bed  and 
white  room — isn't  this  better  than  the  street 
from  which  these  good  people  took  you  ?  " 

The  girl  looked  round  upon  the  snowy 
coverlet,  the  spotless  walls,  the  open  window 
through  which  the  city's  noises  were  hushed  to 
a  sonorous  hum,  then  upon  the  vase  of  flowers 
by  the  bed,  lastly  upon  the  nurse's  face  bend- 
ing over  her,  and  there  her  glance  rested.  A 
big  tear  gathered  and  obscured  her  wondering 
gaze. 

"  Oh,  it  seems  as  if  somebody  must  care  even 
for  me,"  she  sobbed. 

Artistically  the  story  should  stop  here,  but 
practically  such  conclusion  would  be  both  unsat- 
isfactory and  inadequate,  for  the  wisdom  and 
patience  of  poor  Flora's  saviours  was  much  more 
taxed  after  her  convalescence. 

Flora  and  work  were  natural  enemies.  The 
girl's  inherent  laziness  of  disposition  had  been 
fostered  by  her  all  too  easy  and  terrible  voca- 
tion. She  had  entered  the  ranks  of  prostitu- 
tion while  yet  in  appallingly  tender  years,  and 
although  she  came  out  of  her  long  sickness 
heartily  sick  of  her  past  life,  she  was  disposed 
to  trade  upon  the  generosity  of  her  new  friends. 


66  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

The  working  out  of  her  own  salvation  was  not 
included  in  her  calculations.  Her  actions  spoke 
louder  than  any  words  : 

"  It's  up  to  you  to  keep  me  or  I'll  keep  my- 
self in  the  easiest  way  I  know." 

The  doctor  still  paid  occasional  visits  to  the 
Home,  and  anknown  to  the  object  of  her  scru- 
tiny watched  her  protegee  with  growing  scep- 
ticism in  her  eye. 

"  Can  the  Army  make  good  with  the  girl 
now  ?  "  she  soliloquized.  "  It  was  easy  enough 
to  work  upon  her  feelings  but  can  they  create 
a  conscience  in  her  ?  " 

And  her  distrust  increased  as  she  detected 
unmistakable  signs  of  restlessness  and  hanker- 
ings for  freedom. 

One  day  Flora  stood  sullenly  in  the  dormi- 
tory, her  arms  in  a  locked  fold.  Bed-making 
had  been  assigned  to  her,  but  she  refused  to 
speak  or  move.  Then  developed  the  tact  of  her 
officer.  She  forbore  to  scold,  threaten,  or  even 
insist — her  mission  was  to  make,  not  break,  this 
already  broken  woman.     She  said  pleasantly : 

"  Oh,  don't  you  care  to  make  beds  ?  Well, 
every  one  has  their  own  likes  and  dislikes. 
Come  down-stairs,  and  I'll  show  you  a  work 


BEOKEN  WOMANHOOD  67 

which  I  think  so  pretty  and  interesting  that  it 
is  almost  like  play." 

In  the  laundry  a  dainty  apron  was  picked  up, 
and  with  apparent  abstraction  the  officer  began 
to  smooth  out  the  ruffles  as  if  their  glossy  un- 
dulations were  far  more  important  than  the 
willfulness  of  the  girl  who  stood  watching  in 
stolid  silence  behind  her.  Flora  became  inter- 
ested against  her  will ;  at  length  her  arms  slowly 
unfolded  and  she  asked  for  an  iron  that  she 
might  experiment  herself. 

That  day  Flora  did  her  first  honest  work  for 
many  years  ;  did  it  happily,  with  a  will,  and  the 
watching  eye  of  the  doctor  saw  some  subtle 
change  in  the  delinquent's  demeanour  when  she 
passed  her  on  the  stairs  next  morning.  Flora's 
still  attractive  head  was  held  higher  than  usual, 
but  there  was  now  something  wholesome  in  her 
pride. 

When  after  many  months  of  pruning,  prepar- 
ing and  proving  Flora  was  ready  to  leave  for 
an  outside  situation,  the  Rescue  matron  had 
arranged  for  the  girl  one  of  those  little  loving 
surprises  which  make  her  institution  a  veritable 
home  to  its  inmates,  and  herself  their  veritable 
mother.     Flora  had  come  to  the  Army's  care 


68  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

without  a  rag  but  the  bedraggled  finery  on  her 
back  which  had  been  promptly  destroyed,  and 
the  neat  little  outfit  now  awaiting  her  accept- 
ance quite  overwhelmed  her.  She  burst  into 
grateful  tears. 

"  Oh,  nobody  ever  cared  for  me  like  this  be- 
fore," she  cried.     "  I  will  make  good — I  will." 

That  promise  is  several  years  old,  and  the 
girl  who  uttered  it  is  still  "  making  good,"  and 
as  the  doctor  describes  the  result  of  her  test 
case  she  usually  adds  : 

"  The  Army  that  can  deal  successfully  with 
a  forlorn  hope  like  Flora  is  equal  to  anything." 

But  the  Army  she  apostrophized  would  be 
the  first  to  disclaim  its  ability  to  deal  with  the 
least  of  its  living  problems  apart  from  the 
Divinity  which  is  the  Motive  Power  behind  all 
its  machinery. 


THE  BEIDGE  BUILDEE 

No  prodigal  may  eat  his  husks  alone 

FEW  who  read  these  lines  will  have  heard 
the  name  of  the  man  of  whom  they  speak 
but  many  will  have  seen  his  work,  for 
to  reach  one  of  the  largest  cities  in  the  Union 
it  is  inevitable  one  should  pass  either^over  or 
under  a  bridge  which  he  has  built. 

There  is  no  work  in  which  a  man  so  merges 
his  individuality  and  yet  with  which  his  in- 
dividuality is  so  inseparably  identified.  Some 
tunnels  have  borne  the  name  of  the  man  who 
bored  a  highway  through  rock,  braved  noisome 
gases  and  fought  the  forces  of  the  underworld, 
but  no  bridge  builder  needs  thus  to  label  the 
work  of  his  hands.  No  matter  what  com- 
munity may  own  it  or  use  it,  its  every  inch  is 
forever  his  own.  Whether  five  or  five  thousand 
men  have  helped  to  plunge  its  piers,  span  its 
arches  and  stretch  its  revetments  it  remains  the 
concrete  thought  of  one,  for,  as  this  man  puts 
69 


70  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

it,  "  a  bridge  builder  must  see  his  bridge  dowi\ 
to  its  last  screw  and  almost  walk  over  it  before 
ever  the  first  pile  is  driven." 

Thus  the  work — what  of  the  worker,  the 
solitary  figure  often  in  oilskins,  sometimes  at 
giddy  height  or  dangerous  depth,  always  with 
plan  in  hand  and  brain,  who  has  shouldered  the 
safety  as  well  as  the  convenience  of  those  who 
work  and  those  who  hereafter  shall  walk  on  his 
bridge  ?  Sometimes  he  is  a  man  from  the  toil- 
ing ranks  below — one  who  has  himself  driven 
piles,  manipulated  "  nippers,"  pulled  the  levers 
of  a  "  donkey  engine  "  and  mastered  the  scien- 
tific while  he  has  accomplished  the  mechanical 
— a  valuable  combination.  Such  a  bridge 
builder  is  the  subject  of  this  sketch. 

"  The  most  dangerous  work  in  the  world," 
was  Miles'  first  impression.  "  The  most  fasci- 
nating "  was  his  second,  outweighing  and  out 
lasting  the  other.  Chilled  to  the  bone,  every 
thread  on  him  reeking  from  the  river,  his  hands 
torn  and  bleeding,  Miles  finished  his  first  day  aa 
a  bridge  hand  with  the  conviction  that  here 
was  his  life-work.  Much  ingenuity  made  up 
for  little  education  and  a  few  weeks  later  his 
inventive  faculty  had  seen  the  need  of,  and  per- 


THE  BEIDGE  BUILDER  71 

fected  a  better  device  for,  the  pile-driving  engine 
— a  patent  which  is  in  use  to-day.  So  lost  in 
love  of  the  work  was  the  inventor  that,  poor 
though  he  was,  it  passed  as  a  detail  that  an- 
other man  secured  both  the  credit  and  the  cash. 
All  the  same,  Miles  rose  rapidly,  as  is  bound  to 
do  the  man  for  an  emergency.  One  Thanks- 
giving Day  the  engineer  failed  to  put  in  an  ap- 
pearance ;  most  of  the  crew  were  on  hand  and 
with  just  seven  more  piles  to  complete  his  part 
of  the  contract  the  section  boss  profaned  the  air 
with  his  irritation  over  a  wasted  day. 

"  If  you  will  risk  your  engine,"  said  Miles, 
« I'll  risk  myself." 

It  was  an  audacious  proposition  both  for  the 
maker  and  assenter,  but  the  situation  was 
desperate.  Very  slowly  Miles  put  into  practice 
the  observation  which  he  had  been  storing  for 
months  past,  and  feeling  his  way  among  the 
levers  with  the  caution  of  a  blind  man  on  a 
new  road  he  drove  the  seven  piles.  It  was  not 
the  last  occasion  when  this  man  poured  into  the 
sand  box  the  hold  of  bis  own  grit.  Once  he 
secured  a  good  job  as  engineer  when  he  under- 
stood so  little  about  his  engine  that  he  did  not 
know  how  to  get  water  into  the  boiler.    His 


72  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

fireman  little  suspected  the  ignorance  of  his 
chief  who  ordered  him  to  perform  this  duty 
while  he  was  conveniently  busy  with  the  oil 
can.  It  seems  not  unlikely  that  many  were  in 
more  danger  than  they  dreamed  in  those  days 
of  experiment.  But  without  a  mishap  Miles 
pushed  his  brilliant  way  ahead,  and  the  proud 
day  came  when  his  savings  permitted  him  to 
buy  a  sunk  scow  and  donkey  engine.  In  his 
spare  time — very  spare  it  was — he  raised  his 
bargain  out  of  salt  water,  removed  the  rust,  put 
in  the  many  necessary  repairs  and  was  ready  to 
start  in  business  on  his  own  account.  Paradise 
seemed  to  open  for  him  when  he  secured  his  first 
contract,  the  "  sealing  "  of  a  reservoir  against 
the  encroachments  of  quicksand — an  under- 
taking which  brought  him  one  step  nearer  his 
goal,  for  bridge  making  is  a  trade  of  many  in 
one.  An  old  bridge  builder  said  once,  "  Not 
one  man  in  a  thousand  makes  good — the  one 
who  does  has  made  himself  an  expert  in  a  hun- 
dred professions  before  he  qualified  for  this." 

The  day  when,  for  the  first  time,  Miles'  feet 
passed  from  shore  to  shore  on  his  own  span 
brought  him  a  joy  the  essence  of  which  is  only 
tasted    by    creators.     His  ability  to  organize 


THE  BRIDGE  BUILDER  73 

secured  the  best  work  out  of  his  men  who  caught 
their  leader's  enthusiasm  while  they  followed 
his  plans.  When  night  shifts  were  necessary- 
he  schemed  so  that  every  man  should  get  two 
hours'  sleep,  and  thus  the  work  was  not  half 
done  because  drowsily  done.  Partnership  came 
and  passed ;  Miles'  associates  secured  the  profits, 
but  Miles  retained  the  tools,  to  him  the  better 
half  of  a  bad  bargain,  for  he  was  in  this  work 
for  the  love  of  it — it  became  his  life.  Larger 
and  more  important  contracts  passed  through 
his  hands,  and  despite  great  liberality  and  a 
large  outlay  occasioned  by  experimental  inven- 
tions financial  success  demanded  his  acceptance. 
In  seven  years  he  had  amassed  a  net  fortune  of 
$100,000. 

Then  into  the  garden  of  his  content — for 
heaven  on  earth  exists  for  the  man  who  does 
the  work  he  loves — there  entered  the  serpent 
of  temptation.  Alas  that  we  must  chronicle  its 
introduction  by  a  professed  servant  of  Christ. 
Worldly  associates  had  laughed  at  Miles  as  a 
man  of  one  idea,  saying  that  he  did  not  get  his 
money's  worth  out  of  life,  and  he  had  shaken 
his  head  and  turned  Avith  happy  absorption  to 
the  only  recreation   he  relished — work.     But 


74  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

when  evil  presented  itself  at  the  invitation  of  a 
man  whose  beautiful  voice  had  attracted  Miles' 
worshipful  though  not  avowedly  religious  feet 
to  the  church,  he  was  taken  off  his  guard. 

"  Take  a  drink  with  me,  old  fellow,"  said  this 
man  as  they  walked  home  from  service.  "  The 
water  is  bad  here  and  you  don't  want  to  drink 
much  of  it." 

Miles  hesitated — it  was  hard  to  break  through 
the  abstaining  habits  of  man}''  years,  yet  from 
such  a  source  the  request  looked  innocent 
enough,  and  for  courtesy's  sake  he  entered  a 
saloon  for  the  first  time.  Although  held  neither 
by  temperance  pledge  nor  religious  scruple  he 
felt  the  vigour  of  his  strong  manhood  tremble 
as  he  lifted  the  glass,  but  when  he  had  drained 
it  he  set  it  down  with  a  steady  and  reluctant 
hand.  The  flavour  was  pleasant  and  familiar  as 
if  answering  to  a  thirst  which  he  had  always 
carried  unknown  and  unslaked  within  him. 

"  Another,"  he  said  with  kindling  eye. 

*'  First  the  man  takes  a  driuk, 
Then  the  drink  takes  a  drink, 
Then  the  driuk  takes  the  man." 

The  old  Japanese  proverb  was  never  better, 


THE  BEIDGE  BUILDEE  75 

more  bitterly  verified  than  in  Miles.  All  his 
life  he  prided  himself  on  keeping  his  appetites 
under ;  but  now  from  being  master  he  became 
slave.  First  he  took  one  glass  a  day,  then  one 
in  each  barroom,  then  he  could  not  get  the  bar- 
rooms close  enough  together,  and  grudged  the 
steps  he  must  stagger  between  them.  Soon  the 
strong  mind  began  to  muddle,  the  strong  hand 
to  shake  and  the  strong  will,  which  had  so 
easily  dominated  others,  to  lose  control.  There 
is  no  work  in  which  any  weakening  of  the  mas- 
ter mind  quicker  shows  itself  than  in  bridge 
building,  and  a  business  associate  ventured  a 
protest. 

"  Forgive  an  old  friend's  anxiety,  Miles,  but 
you  are  drinking  too  much.  You  are  well  up 
in  the  profession,  and  we  would  all  hate  to  see 
you  go  down." 

But  Miles  with  new  surliness  swore  that  if 
he  chose  to  go  to  perdition  it  was  nobody 
else's  business,  and  the  friend  warned  him  no 
more.  The  heretofore  courteous  man  had 
spoken  in  liquor — sober  moments  were  becom- 
ing rare  occasions,  occurring  at  less  and  less 
frequent  intervals.  Once  again  John  Barly- 
corn,  that  drummer  on  the  fields  of  the  defeated 


76  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

sounded  the  retreat — the  hands  of  Miles'  clock 
began  to  lose  time,  while  his  whole  nature 
coarsened  and  shrank. 

Then  commenced  a  ghastly  retrograde.  Dan- 
gers that  he  could  have  foreseen  and  avoided 
created  catastrophe  and  weakened  confidence ; 
accidents  refused  to  be  hushed  up ;  hints  even 
of  death  through  his  carelessness  leaked  out. 
The  employees,  who  would  have  sworn  by  their 
master,  now  under  their  breath  began  to  swear 
at  him.  The  humanity  which  had  brougiit  him 
as  much  love  as  his  ability  had  commanded  re- 
spect was  replaced  by  a  brutal  indiiference. 
The  man  who  once  would  have  made  a  tourni- 
quet of  his  own  shirt  sleeve  to  staunch  the 
blood  of  the  wounded  now  looked  on  unmoved 
at  crushed  limbs  and  torn  bodies — sneering 
away  pitiful  cries  for  medical  assistance.  So 
does  drink  destroy  and  disfigure  all  that  is  best 
of  a  man's  character,  while  its  ruthless  claws 
pick  clean  his  career. 

Existing  offers  were  cancelled,  no  new  work 
came  to  his  hands.  He  who  had  been  master 
sank  to  the  level  of  man.  First  the  work  of 
his  brain  was  outlawed,  then  the  work  of  his 
hands  found  no  market.     Where  he  had  been 


THE  BRIDGE  BUILDER  77 

the  moving  factor  he  was  now  unwanted  in  the 
lowest  place.  Soon  the  prosperous  bridge 
builder  had  become  a  drunken  destitute. 

Into  the  home  his  sin  had  entered  like  a 
thief.  Comforts  followed  each  other  in  dis- 
appearance, the  glow  of  health  quenched  upon 
his  wife's  face,  a  great  horror  dawned  in  the 
eyes  of  his  boy  and  girl.  Vicarious  sacrifices, 
they  "  began  to  be  in  want,"  for  it  is  one  of  the 
saddest  facts  of  human  life  that  no  prodigal 
may  eat  his  husks  alone. 

Once  during  those  hideous  years  Miles  swore 
off  drink,  signed  the  pledge  in  his  own  blood. 
He  was  that  night  just  sufficiently  intoxicated  to 
feel  irritation  at  his  daughter's  tears,  and  with 
the  drunkard's  ready  petulance  demanded  : 

"  Why  the  h are  you  snivelling,  Rose  ?  " 

His  wife  answered  through  tight  thin  lips : 

"Rose  is  crying  because  people  are  calling 
after  her,  '  There  goes  the  boozer's  girl.'  " 

Stung  to  the  quick  the  father  turned  on  his 
heel,  climbing  to  his  once  luxurious,  now  bare, 
chamber  to  have  it  out  with  himself. 

A  few  days  afterwards  his  wife  discovered 
the  fruit  of  his  remorse,  a  piece  of  original 
doggerel : 


78  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

"  Oh,  here's  farewell  to  whiskey. 
I've  known  you  too  long  now. 
And  thanks  to  my  own  will  power, 
To  you  I  will  not  bow. 
I'll  never  taste  of  you  again 
While  I'm  above  the  sod. 
I'll  never  drink  of  you  again. 
No,  no,  so  help  me  God. " 

Miles  had  evidently  thought  to  make  the 
pledge  more  final  by  writing  it  in  his  own 
blood,  but  a  bitter  smile  crossed  the  woman's 
face  as  the  sound  of  a  ribald  song  and  stumbling 
footfall  floated  up  from  the  floor  below.  Miles' 
sanguinary  contract  had  not  held  him  a  week  ! 

And  now  before  the  curtain  falls  upon  her 
for  the  last  time  we  turn  the  spotlight  upon 
the  most  pathetic  character  upon  this  tragic 
stage — the  thin  figure  bowed  with  the  burdens 
of  others,  the  face  fiUed  with  the  poignancy  of 
much  love  and  much  sorrow.  Hats  off  before 
one  of  those  mothers  of  men  who  have  seen  the 
fulfillment  of  that  most  significant  prophecy, 
"  a  sword  shall  pierce  thine  own  heart  also." 

Of  all  her  large  family  Miles  had  been  the 
son  of  her  heart.  Before  ever  she  held  him  in 
her  arms  she  had  set  this  child  apart  for  the 
kingdom   of   God,   and  for  his   second   name 


THE  BEIDGE  BUILDER  79 

chosen  that  of  a  gi^eat  evangelist,  in  whose 
footsteps  she  pledged  him  to  follow.  "  Mother's 
boy"  the  others  called  him,  and  from  their 
persecution  the  little  fellow  ran  away  one  night, 
but  her  tearful  voice  calling  his  name  brought 
him  out  from  his  hiding-place.  When  his  father 
thrashed  him  she  protected  him  with  the  folds 
of  her  homespun  dress.  Her  faith  was  tried  by 
his  small  concern  for  religious  matters,  but 
many  times  her  heart  swelled  with  pleasure 
over  him — notably  when  but  as  a  stripling  he 
freed  the  old  homestead  from  debt,  and  again 
when  he  had  risen  to  eminence  in  his  chosen 
profession  she  came  to  live  in  pride  near  her 
prosperous  son.  When  he  fell,  the  shock  shat- 
tered her  health,  but  could  not  shake  the  con- 
fidence of  her  spirit ;  year  after  year  as  he 
drank  himself  out  of  all  resemblance  to  her  joy 
and  pride  she  clung  to  the  promise  made  to 
heaven  concerning  him.     She  said : 

"  You  may  laugh  your  fill  at  it  for  an  old 
woman's  fancy,  but  though  I  may  not  live  to 
hear  it,  you'll  preach  the  Gospel  yet.  You  are 
breaking  my  heart.  Miles,  but  you  cannot 
defeat  God's  purposes  nor  my  prayers  for  you." 

Next  day  she  fell  upon  the  spot  where  she 


80  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

had  spoken.  The  arms  that  had  so  often  held 
him  he  now  held  in  his — dead.  But  at  the 
funeral  he  shed  no  tear — he  stood  drunk  at  her 
grave. 

"  And  I  heard  a  voice  from  heaven  saying 
unto  me  write,  blessed  are  the  dead  which  die 
in  the  Lord  and  from  hereafter,  yea,  saith  the 
spirit,  that  they  may  rest  from  their  labours,  and 
their  works  do  follow  them." 

Eight  years  after  the  world  saw  the  fulfill- 
ment of  that  promise. 

Miles'  downward  course  now  became  a  head- 
long rush.  Drunkenness  is  of  all  sins  the  most 
gregarious;  it  refuses  to  live  alone  in  any 
man's  heart,  introducing  devils  of  its  kind 
to  bear  it  company.  Adultery,  murder  and 
suicide  took  possession  with  drink.  From  ac- 
tually severing  the  silver  cord  of  life  Miles 
was  as  a  miracle  withheld,  but  what  difference 
in  the  scales  of  God  where  intent  is  weighed 
equal  with  action.  The  lust  to  kill  consumed 
him,  and  for  months  he  hunted  his  two 
brothers  as  a  hound  hunts  its  quarry.  The 
insanity  of  a  drunkard's  revenge  is  the 
hope  of  his  victim,  for  while  many  unpremedi- 
tated   deeds  of  blood  are  undoubtedly  done 


THE  BRIDGE  BUILDER  81 

under  intoxication,  those  deliberately  planned 
under  its  influence  are  often  foiled.  The  op- 
portunity to  slay  again  and  again  slipped 
through  his  unsteady  fingers,  and  while  many 
times  the  pistol  was  loaded  and  the  knife 
pointed,  the  stain  of  the  fratricide  which  was^on 
his  soul  forbore  to  disfigure  his  hands.  The 
miscarriage  of  his  fiendish  plots  drove  Miles  to 
frenzy.  In  vain  he  drank  himself  into  bestial 
depravity — he  found  no  comfort  in  his  curse, 
and  he  resolved  to  throw  away  the  life  now 
worthless  to  himself  and  every  one  else. 

Midnight  found  him  upon  one  of  his  own 
bridges.  With  curious  aloofness  he  observed 
the  small  mark  time  had  left  upon  its  appear- 
ance, none  apparently  upon  its  stability,  and 
noted  the  patent  specialities  in  its  structure 
which  had  featured  his  work  of  that  time.  He 
thought  bitterly,  "  Yes,  the  bridge  will  stand 
scrutiny  but  the  builder  won't  bear  inspection," 
and  with  a  groan  pushed  his  way  on. 

The  moonlight  looked  down  in  cold  disdain 
upon  the  wild-eyed  man,  so  carefully  setting 
his  stage  for  life's  last  scene.  Eight  in  the 
centre  of  the  mighty  arch  which  had  been  his 
just  pride  he  stopped  and  leaned  over  the  para- 


82  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

pet  for  the  plunge.  With  a  sudden  cry  he 
recoiled  and  staggered  back  smitten  by  the 
reflection  of  a  face  in  the  water  below.  It 
was  his  own,  but  to  his  disordered  fancy  it 
seemed  that  of  his  mother — he  had  flung  her 
love  back  in  brutal  taunts,  he  had  blasted  all 
her  hopes  of  him,  he  had  kicked  the  sod  of  her 
grave  with  a  drunken  foot — he  could  not  throw 
his  dead  body  in  her  face !  He  ran  from  the 
bridge  as  from  a  haunted  thing. 

From  his  curse  there  now  seemed  only  one 
escape — back  into  its  burning,  blistering  heart. 
Perhaps  he  might  drink  himself  to  death. 

But  a  "Will  long  denied  and  forgotten  had 
decreed  otherwise  ;  a  Force  resisted  all  his  life 
was  about  to  make  itself  felt.  In  twenty 
years,  ever  since  the  church  singer  had  be- 
trayed him,  he  had  not  entered  God's  house. 
He  was  an  outcast  alike  from  respectability 
and  religion,  but  once  again  through  the  mouth 
of  a  merciful  militancy  Divinity  chose  to  give 
voice. 

One  day  Miles  sat  drinking  with  two  com- 
panions— three  of  a  kind ;  all  had  fallen 
from  good  positions — one  a  lawyer,  the  other 
educated   for  the  ministry.     In  the  midst  of 


THE  BEIDGE  BUILDEE  83 

their  carousal,  the  latter  suddenly  clapped  his 
hands  in  drunken  exuberation  exclaiming : 

"  Say,  fellows,  did  you  hear  that  big  Peter's 
been  converted  by  the  Salvation  Army  ?  He's 
taken  to  preaching  instead  of  punching,  they 
say." 

"  Then  I'm  going  to  hear  him,"  said  Miles. 

"  Nonsense !  They'll  turn  you  out.  Mad 
Miles  turning  softy  !  Nothing  worth  seeing 
there,  old  boy !  " 

But  with  the  uncertain  temper  of  a  drunkard, 
Miles  swore  he  would  take  his  fun  where  he 
liked,  and  they  could  all  go — a  long  journey  ! 

That  night,  for  the  first  time  in  a  score  of 
years,  the  man  found  himself  listening  to  the 
voice  of  prayer.  Once  there  he  forgot  all 
about  big  Peter ;  his  half -fuddled  brain  could 
only  remember  his  mother  and  he  asked  for 
her  favourite  hymn,  "  Eock  of  Ages,  cleft  for 
me,"  which,  with  the  Army's  knowledge  when 
and  when  not  to  take  a  drunken  man  seriously, 
they  proceeded  to  sing  softly  and  tenderly. 

He  stumbled  out  to  curse  himseK  for  going, 
for  he  felt  considerably  worse  than  before.  To 
his  horror  he  found  neither  drink  nor  debauchery 
could  shake  off  the  impression.    It  was  as  though 


84  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

the  torturing  knife  had  been  turned  in  an  open 
■wound.  Remorse  devoured  him  but  not  at  once 
for  his  sin.  First  he  began  to  grieve  over  his 
lost  money,  then  for  the  misery  brought  on  his 
mother,  wife  and  children,  and  at  last  for  his 
ov^n  wrong-doing  which  had  caused  it  all.  He 
still  drank,  but  bravado  slipped  from  him.  He 
could  no  longer  carry  sin  off  with  a  high  hand. 
He  shunned  the  min'or's  reflection  of  his  face, 
dreading  the  new  "abasement  written  there. 
He  did  not  realize  that  while 

"Shame  is  a  shadow  cast  by  sin,  yet  shame 
Itself  may  be  a  glory  and  a  grace, 
Befashioning  the  siu-disfashioned  face  ; 
A  nobler  bruit  than  hollow  sounded  fame, 
A  new  lit  lustre  on  a  tarnished  name. 
One  virtue  pent  within  an  evil  place. 
Strength  for  the  fight  and  swiftness  for  the  race, 
A  stinging  salve,  a  life  requickeuing  flame, 
A  salve  so  searching  we  may  scarcely  live, 
A  flame  so  fierce  it  seems  that  we  must  die, 
An  actual  cautery  thrust  into  the  heart 
Nevertheless  men  die  not  of  such  smart ; 
And  shame  gives  back  what  nothing  else  can 

give, 
Man  to  himself — then  sets  him  up  on  high." 

The  poetess  might  have  had  our  wrecked 
bridge  builder  in  her  mind  when  she  wrote  those 


THE  BEIDGE  BUILDER  85 

lines,  but  for  many  months  out  of  his  humilia- 
tion Miles  cursed  his  choicest  blessing. 

"  Oh,  if  time  would  only  turn  backward 
twenty  years,"  he  groaned  out  of  the  depths, 
yet  blasphemed  the  patient,  compassionate 
Army  folk  toiling  over  his  torturing  and  tor- 
tured soul.  He  would  do  without  them  and 
their  God.  Bousing  all  that  was  left  of  his 
once  splendid  will  power  he  determined  to  have 
done  with  drink.  For  some  days  he  fought  his 
foe  with  exhausting  ferocity.  He  ran  past  bar- 
rooms, he  held  his  breath  that  he  might  not  in- 
hale temptation,  he  shunned  old  companions  ; 
night  and  day  the  combat  knew  not  a  mo- 
ment's truce.  Big  veins  stood  out  on  the  man's 
forehead.  He  felt  the  strain  telling  on  his  mind 
— then  thirst  broke  its  leash.  Before  he  could 
climb  it  seemed  he  had  to  fall  once  more,  for  it 
was  in  an  agony  of  self-disgust  that  he  fell 
drunk  at  last  at  the  Army's  penitent  form. 
Again  there  came  the  memory  of  mother,  and 
scarcely  knowing  what  he  prayed,  his  first 
words  repeated  part  of  the  hymn  she  had  loved, 
"  Help  Thou  my  unbelief."  "Who  can  say  that 
her  spirit  was  not  near  her  boy's,  as  for  over  an 
hour  he  writhed  in  agony  of  soul,  the  faithful 


86  THE  SALVAGE  OF  IVIEN 

captain  by  his  side  praying,  believing,  and,  to 
his  credit  be  it  said,  weeping  over  him,  for 
while  on  occasion  the  Salvationist  has  been 
known  to  take  the  part  of  avenging  angel  and 
goliath  of  valour,  his  best  and  most  lasting 
work  is  done  as  a  "  brother  born  for  adversity." 

As  the  drink  cleared  from  his  brain  Miles  be- 
came more  and  more  desperate. 

"  Oh,  God,"  he  cried,  "  I'll  stay  here  till  I  die 
or  You  save  me." 

Then  that  mighty  upheaval  which  is  a  stronger 
argument  for  its  Divine  Originator  than  all  the 
theologies  shook  and  freed  him.  Miles'  second 
prayer  scarcely  left  his  lips  for  many  months 
to  come. 

"  Oh,  God  of  my  salvation,  help  me  to  make 
restitution — give  me  strength  to  work  night  and 
day  till  it  is  done." 

But  it  is  no  easy  or  quick  matter  to  regain 
the  lost  footing  of  twenty  years.  Restitution 
began  at  home — reconcilation  with  his  wife  and 
prayers  by  his  children's  bedside,  asking  them 
as  well  as  God  to  forgive  him.  Then  with  love 
replacing  hate  in  his  heart  he  hurried  to  find 
those  whom  he  had  sought  to  kill,  and  left 
them  looking  with  dazed  faces  at  the  hands  he 


THE  BEIDGE  BUILDEE  87 

had  clasped.  During  his  attempt  to  sober  up 
he  had  had  a  summons  out  for  payment  of  an 
old  bill ;  now  he  called  it  off  saying,  "  Let  the 
dead  past  bury  its  dead.  I  don't  want  to  col- 
lect a  cent,"  But  his  own  debts  he  shouldered 
— every  one.  He  felt  only  so  doing  could  he 
show  God  and  the  Army  his  gratitude  for  the 
miracle  of  his  conversion,  with  its  utter  annihi- 
lation of  the  thirst  which  had  consumed  him. 
Before  that  first  glass  his  signature  would  have 
been  good  on  paper  at  any  of  the  city's  banks  ; 
when  the  Army  crossed  his  path  no  one  would 
have  given  him  credit  for  twenty-five  cents. 
His  debts  amounted  to  twenty  thousand  dollars. 
Some  of  this  money  was  outlawed,  but  the  first 
dollar  paid  on  such  debts  renewed  them.  Miles' 
conscience  could  only  be  satisfied  by  the  fulfill- 
ment of  every  moral  as  well  as  legal  obligation, 
proving  the  Divine  origin  of  the  impulse  which 
controlled  him.  It  looked  a  herculean  task  for 
the  man  who  had  worn  out  all  confidence  and 
who  did  not  own  a  cent  in  the  world. 

"  How  did  you  do  it  ?  "  he  was  asked  years 
after  it  was  done. 

Grateful  tears  started  to  his  eyes. 

"  I  had  these,"  holding  out  his  hands,  "  and 


88  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

this,"  pointing  to  his  head,  "  was  getting  better. 
God  had  confidence  in  me,  and  I  knew  He'd  see 
that  the  world  would  give  it  back  to  me  one 
day." 

Heaven  is  pledged  to  make  good  such  assur- 
ance. A  few  days  later  a  friendly  bridge 
builder  said,  "  I  hear  good  things  of  you.  Miles. 
'Nuf  sed.  If  you  want  a  new  start,  you  can 
have  it  with  me." 

That  first  job  was  significant — the  remodel- 
ling of  one  of  his  own  bridges.  Reconstruction 
of  work  and  reconstruction  of  character  went 
on  together.  Miles  had  not  a  tool ;  he  hired 
them  all,  making  the  stipulation  that  if  the 
work  was  completed  in  a  certain  time  their  rent 
would  become  part  of  the  purchasing  money, 
which  showed  that  business  acumen  was  com- 
ing back  to  him.  The  making  over  task  was 
not  easy  on  bridge  or  man.  Trafiic  went  on 
both  above  and  below  all  the  time  of  altera- 
tion, two  trains  passing  every  ten  minutes,  but 
the  work  was  done  in  less  than  schedule  limit 
without  a  single  mishap,  and  Miles'  hymn  of 
praise  had  a  new,  firm  note  in  it  as  he  felt  his 
feet  gaining  ground.  How  he  worked  those 
days  !    Old  companions  who  watched  said  that 


THE  BRIDGE  BUILDEE  89 

he  was  drunk  again — but  with  work.  It 
seemed  that  he  had  superhuman  power  given 
him  to  toil  as  he  had  prayed  night  and  day, 
without  tiring,  till  the  last  of  that  twenty  thou- 
sand dollars  was  paid  off. 

That  is  live  years  ago  and  the  saved  bridge 
builder  has  never  looked  back.  His  business 
during  the  last  twelve  months  has  increased 
four  hundred  times  and  his  men,  who  come  to 
the  meetings  sometimes  to  hear  their  hallelujah 
master,  nod  their  heads,  saying,  "  Tha-t's  no  mere 
talk  as  we  who  work  for  him  know.  The  boss 
is  just  as  good  when  he  is  building  his  bridge." 
Drinking  and  swearing  are  at  a  premium 
anjong  his  hands  as  a  consequence. 

it  was  a  foregone  conclusion  that  Miles  should 
become  a  Salvationist.  He  feels  he  owes  to 
the  Army  a  debt  which  a  lifetime's  gratitude 
can  never  repay.  His  automobiles,  of  which  he 
owns  five,  have  done  thousands  of  miles  on 
Salvation  service  in  the  hard  week  ends  which 
sandwich  his  six  days  "  on  the  bridge." 

We  close  with  an  incident  which  to  Miles' 
delivered  soul  sets  the  seal  upon  his  rehabili- 
tated manhood.  It  has  ab'eady  been  stated 
that  he  is  of  the  inventive  faculty.     Just  before 


90  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

the  crash  of  his  downfall  a  new  device  of  his 
brain  was  in  course  of  construction.  Many 
times  the  invention  seemed  nearing  completion, 
but  always  something  essential  to  its  working 
evaded  him.  For  twenty  years  the  uncom- 
pleted model  lay  useless.  Then  one  day  the 
new  man  found  it  and  began  to  finger  the  com- 
ponent parts.  As  he  slowly  put  them  together, 
like  a  flash  there  came  to  him  the  missing  link 
of  the  proposition.  It  now  seemed  the  simplest 
part  of  the  whole  problem,  and  in  a  moment 
the  patent  was  perfect. 


F 


YI 

THE  CO-ED 

Nothing  left  of  the  Bible  but  the  covers 

REDERICA  was  a  born  student.  From 
babyhood,  books  were  her  delight,  al- 
though in  earlier  years  they  had  per- 
force to  be  stolen  pleasures.  An  elder  sister 
had  overstudied  to  the  limit  of  brain  fever,  and 
the  alarmed  parents  vowed  that  sooner  than 
jeopardize  her  health  their  other  daughter 
should  be  a  dunce.  Till  the  age  of  nine  all 
printed  matter  was  tabooed,  and  when  at  last 
school  ^as  permitted  the  tall,  proud  girl  was 
put  among  the  infants  of  the  first  grade. 

"  I  can't,  I  won't  stay  with  those  babies,"  she 
cried  passionately,  and  with  a  celerity  which 
astonished  her  teachers  she  mastered  her  rudi- 
ments and  left  them.  Then  commenced  a 
record-breaking  run  through  the  grades.  It 
seemed  to  her  school-fellows  that  Frederica 
absorbed  knowledge  like  a  sponge  absorbs  water, 

but  they  could  not  see  how  much  her  strong 
91 


92  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

will  helped  her  good  head.  Every  play  hour 
was  "  study  period  "  with  her,  and  through  all 
her  school  days  there  was  not  a  vacation  which 
she  permitted  herself.  Thus  a  certain  com- 
mencement exercises  found  the  girl  who  had  be- 
gun school  with  such  a  serious  handicap  gradu- 
ating as  the  youngest  member  of  her  class. 

But  Frederica's  troubles  were  not  all  over. 
Her  father  frowned  when  she  spoke  of  high 
school  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  said  he  would 
not  buy  her  a  single  book  for  such  nonsense. 

"  A  common  grammar  school  education  is 
good  enough  for  any  woman,"  he  said,  "  and 
when  I  put  my  foot  down,  the  family  knows 
what  it  means." 

The  family  did,  and  Frederica  wasted  no 
time  in  attempting  to  argue  the  point  with  him. 
But  she  had  all  her  father's  determination,  with 
a  great  deal  more  ingenuity,  and  by  the  time 
high  school  opened,  she  was  ready  equipped  to 
start  with  the  rest.  How  she  had  managed  it, 
how  she  had  slaved  and  saved,  doing  odd  jobs 
for  the  neighbours  for  a  pittance,  or  sacrificing 
money  allowed  by  her  parents  for  necessities 
cannot  be  detailed  here.  To  the  father's  credit 
be  it  said,  that  when  he  saw  how  his  daughter 


THE  CO-ED  93 

had  outwitted  him  his  admiration  smothered 
his  chagrin. 

Before  the  high  school  principal  Frederica 
stood  perplexed,  fingering  the  parents'  sugges- 
tion card  which  had  just  been  given  her.  She 
knew  that  to  take  it  home  would  open  the  old 
difficulty  and  possibly  create  new  and  stam- 
mered : 

"  My  parents  don't — they  leave  it  to  me." 

Asked  then  what  language  she  would  take 
Frederica  answered  without  great  thought : 

"  I'll  take  that  which  will  best  help  me  to  be 
a  missionary." 

The  professor  who  belonged  to  the  Eoman 
Church  looked  at  the  pupil  narrowly,  and  see- 
ing in  her  a  possible  proselyte  suggested  Latin. 
The  choice  proved  momentous,  for  this  lan- 
guage, being  the  gateway  to  the  classics,  natu- 
rally inclined  the  girl  towards  a  college  career. 

No  great  spu^itual  conviction  had  prompted 
Frederica's  reference  to  "  missionary."  From 
early  years  her  conception  of  religion  was  a  debt 
which  had  to  be  paid,  and  her  idea  was  that 
some  years  as  a  missionary  would  cancel  her 
obligations — too  it  would  necessitate  study  and 
promised  travel,  both  loadstones  to  the  girl's 


94  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

ambitious  mind.  Her  mother  was  an  Episcopa- 
lian, her  father  a  Unitarian ;  but  the  fervour  of 
neither  was  sufficient  to  cause  any  clashing  in 
the  children's  upbringing.  Conscience  was 
never  used  as  an  argument  to  keep  good. 
"  Nice  people  do  that — nice  people  do  not  do 
that "  was  the  code  of  religion  and  morals  laid 
down  by  this  typical  Bostonian  pair. 

During  high  school  days  Frederica  made  her 
first  religious  experiment,  for  it  is  no  sacrilege  to 
call  by  that  name  her  rather  jaunty  trial  of  a 
school-fellows'  church.  Her  understanding  of 
the  requirements  of  membership  was  threefold 
in  its  simplicity — she  must  read  the  Bible,  pray 
and  give  up  theatre- going.  The  first  two  were 
easy  as  she  made  up  her  mind  to  rush  through 
a  single  verse,  while  she  told  herself  she  could 
gabble  through  the  Lord's  prayer  as  fast  as  any- 
body. The  embargo  was  more  than  she  had 
reckoned  on,  but  she  ruefully  reminded  her- 
self that  something  must  be  paid  somewhere 
and  that  she  might  find  some  amusing  shows 
within  the  sphere  of  the  church  ! 

The  present  day  Frederica  would  be  the  last 
to  blame  the  pillars  of  the  church  for  the  ease 
with  which,  while  entirely  irreligious  at  heart, 


THE  CO-ED  95 

she  slid  into  prominent  membership ;  their  in- 
vestigations may  have  been  superficial,  but  any- 
one might  have  been  misled  by  her  apparent 
zeal.  Frederica  always  had  a  passion  to  teach, 
but  there  was  no  Sunday-school  class  for  her, 
so  she  soon  manufactured  one  for  herself — all 
she  asked  of  the  superintendent  was  a  couple  of 
benches  and  a  class  book.  Then  the  young 
lady  recruited  from  the  neighbourhood  three  of 
its  worst  young  toughs  under  the  promise  of 
giving  them  the  time  of  their  lives.  The  class 
soon  doubled  and  trebled,  and  old  teachers  mar- 
velled at  its  rapt  attention,  every  head  bowed 
with  the  teacher's  round,  as  they  thought,  the 
Bible.  But  more  often  the  object  of  such  en- 
thralling interest  was  some  queer  insect  or  rare 
plant,  for  Frederica  was  imparting  with  the  zest 
of  a  born  teacher  no  Scripture  but  botany  and 
zoology.  It  was  a  very  lively  specimen  which 
at  last  almost  literally  "  let  the  cat  out  of  the 
bag." 

About  the  time  the  Salvation  Army  com- 
menced work  in  her  native  city,  Frederica,  en 
route  for  the  university,  took  a  temporary  posi- 
tion as  teacher  of  science  in  a  theological  semi- 
nary.    She  was  always  on  the  lookout  for  some- 


96  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

thing  of  interest  and  amusement  to  apply  in  her 
teaching,  and  the  newspapers'  rather  garish  re- 
port of  the  peculiar  ways  of  this  peculiar  peo- 
ple suggested,  "  Why  not  conduct  a  mock  Sal- 
vation Army  meeting  in  the  class  of  methods 
and  pick  it  to  pieces  afterwards  for  the  edifica- 
tion of  the  students  as  an  example  of  preposter- 
ous and  unseemly  methods  of  work  ?  "  The  plan 
was  carried  through  amid  shrieks  of  merriment, 
for  Frederica  was  a  natural  mimic,  and  although 
she  had  never  laid  eyes  on  a  Salvationist  she 
let  her  imagination  have  full  play.  But  her 
triumph  was  short-lived.  Next  morning  she 
was  summoned  to  the  principal's  presence  and 
severely  censured  for  ridiculing  a  religious  or- 
ganization. 

"  Keligious !  "  Frederica  scorned.  "  They  are 
just  a  show,  and  I  don't  think  you  should  re- 
prove me  for  making  fun  of  them." 

But  the  professor  held  his  point. 

"  They  are  good  people,"  he  declared,  adding 
with  a  smile,  "  You  may  be  one  of  them  your- 
self one  day,  young  lady." 

"  Never ! "  exclaimed  Frederica  disgusted. 
"  I'd  die  first." 

So  unrepentant   was  her  attitude  that  the 


THE  CO-ED  97 

good  man  ended  the  interview  with  prayer,  but 
Frederica  stood  up  and  drummed  on  the  window- 
pane. 

Vacation  time  came  round  again — always  too 
long  it  lasted  for  this  girl  whose  world  was  her 
class  room.  Having  exhausted  every  respect- 
able means  of  entertainment,  she  astonished 
her  friend  one  night  with  the  suggestion  : 

"  Let's  try  Boston's  latest,  and  see  what  fun 
we  can  get  out  of  the  Salvation  Army."  The 
problem  was  a  bold  one  to  relieve  the  tedium 
of  a  night's  ennui,  but  Frederica's  chum  was 
"game"  and  they  sought  admittance  at  the 
Army  hall. 

"  We'll  sit  on  the  back  seat,"  they  planned, 
but  they  were  not  destined  to  do  so,  for  the 
door  opened  at  the  front  instead  of  the  rear 
and  they  had  no  choice  but  to  take  the  first 
seat.  On  such  small  things  do  great  differences 
turn.  Had  Frederica  sat  at  the  back  among 
the  gang  of  toughs  gathered  there,  she  might 
have  gone  out  disgusted  by  their  presence  at  a 
place  of  worship  and  missed  all  the  true 
significance  of  the  scene.  As  it  was,  she  came 
at  once  into  the  heart  of  the  meeting  and  the 
girl's    rather    cold,    calculating    nature    was 


98  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

gripped  immediately  by  the  almost  alarming 
earnestness  she  felt  breathing  there.  Her  im- 
pression was  greatly  deepened  by  her  astonish- 
ment over  some  of  those  who  occupied  seats  on 
the  platform,  for  there,  clothed  in  the  vestments 
of  the  organization,  and  evidently  in  a  new  and 
radiant  change  of  mind,  sat  some  over  whom 
she  had  exhausted  much  thought — and  means 
— during  some  slumming  experiences  of  her 
own  in  that  locality,  gone  about  discreetly  in  a 
black  silk  dress.  Her  experience  with  such 
had  been  that  they  went  fairly  well  while  her 
tickets  for  entertainment  and  blankets  lasted, 
but  that  when  her  bounty  ran  out  so  did  their 
good  resolutions,  and  their  lapse  had  usually 
been  to  a  state  worse  at  the  last  than  the  first. 
They  were  apparently  receiving  no  charity 
here,  and  yet  they  stuck.  Had  the  Salvation 
Army  exorcised  over  them  some  spell  ? 

"  I  must  study  this,"  said  Frederica  with  one 
of  her  downright  conclusions  and  she  proceeded 
to  do  so.  She  bribed  the  maid  to  let  her  out 
of  the  house  without  waldng  the  family  early 
Sunday  morning  so  that  she  might  see  the  Army 
in  its  first  meeting  of  the  day ;  that  she  thought 
would  catch  them  off  their  guard,  for  they 


THE  CO-ED  90 

could  not  possibly  be  at  their  best  at  that  un- 
godly hour.  She  listened  outside  the  closed 
door  of  the  Soldiers'  meeting  hoping  to  learn 
their  secrets  ;  she  surreptitiously  subscribed  to 
the  War  Cry  and  bought  a  copy  of  their  doc- 
trines which  she  pulled  to  pieces  without  find- 
ing a  flaw.  But  above  all  impressions  were  the 
personal  ones  made  by  the  Salvationists.  They 
upset  all  her  preconceived  ideas  as  to  religion 
being  a  debt  which  must  be  paid  with  as  little 
surplus  as  possible — here  was  a  religion  which 
was  not  so  much  a  creed  as  a  life,  a  passion 
which  claimed  one's  all  and  then  left  one  wish- 
ing there  was  more  to  give.  Frederica  gasped 
at  the  revolution  such  a  belief  might  work  in 
her  life,  but  conscience  and  reason  told  her  that 
here  was  the  real  thing  at  last — the  kind  of 
faith  which  matched  a  far-off  and  fading  con- 
tract of  her  own  made  with  God  alone  in  the 
pine  woods  some  years  before. 

That  was  an  eye-opening  vacation,  and  Fred- 
erica  went  back  to  college  to  make  reparation. 
No  greater  penance  could  have  been  imposed 
upon  her  proud  spirit  than  this  self-imposed 
eating  of  her  own  words,  but  she  felt  she  had 
wronged  truth,   and  astonished  her  class  by 


100  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

publicly  apologizing  for  the  misleading  state- 
ments she  had  made  about  the  Army  during 
the  previous  term. 

Thus  it  developed  that  Frederica's  university 
career  found  her  an  avowed  friend  of  the 
organization.  In  those  days  and  in  that  place  it 
took  a  good  deal  of  moral  courage  to  publicly 
proclaim  sympathy  with  such  unconventional 
religionists.  The  debating  class  furnished  an 
immediate  and  excellent  opportunity  for  show- 
ing her  colours ;  suggestions  for  topics  were 
solicited  and  Frederica's  was  given  without 
any  hesitation. 

"I  submit  as  topic  the  Salvation  Army; 
shall  it  have  the  support  of  the  churches  ?  " 

"  But,  my  dear  young  lady,"  replied  the 
amazed  professor  amid  the  excitement  of  the 
students,  "  entertaining  as  no  doubt  we  should 
find  such  an  original  topic,  Avho  could  we 
possibly  ask  to  undertake  the  affirmative  ?  " 

"  I  hoped  to  take  the  affirmative  myself,"  said 
Frederica  quietly,  and  her  audacity  carried  her 
point. 

All  the  same  it  was  not  without  some  nerv- 
ousness and  great  care  that  Frederica  prepared 
her  paper  in  support  of  the  unpopular  side,  for 


THE  CO-ED  101 

she  anticipated  the  criticism  that  would  be 
levied  against  it  and  her ;  all  the  more  so  as 
she  had  to  compete  with  the  finest  debater  of 
the  college.  But  the  reward  of  moral  heroism 
was  hers.  Clarity  visualized  the  whole  argu- 
ment to  her  mind  ;  liberty  took  possession  of 
her  tongue  and  for  the  first  time  casting  her 
manuscript  behind  her  back  she  took  the  de- 
bate orally.  Words  leaped  to  her  lips,  as  illu- 
minating thoughts  flashed  themselves  into 
utterance,  and  when  she  sat  down  the  class 
of  one  hundred  students  burst  into  tumultuous 
applause. 

Months  afterwards  when  the  principal  re- 
viewed the  year's  work  he  said  of  the  debating 
class,  "  We  have  had  only  one  debate  this  year 
— that  upon  the  Salvation  Army,"  and  the 
whole  college  echoed  the  cheers  which  the 
class  had  given.  But  neither  then  nor  pre- 
viously did  Frederica  feel  any  personal  pride 
in  the  achievement — it  was  rather  as  if  she  had 
made  her  confession  of  faith. 

By  the  time  Frederica  became  one  of  the 
faculty,  every  one  in  the  college  called  her  a 
Salvationist.  But  in  reality  she  was  far  from 
being  one  either  in  name  or  spirit.     To  cham- 


102  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

pion  a  despised  cause  was  very  different  to 
allying  herself  once  and  for  all  with  its  de- 
spised followers.  For  such  a  decision  Frederica 
was  not  prepared.  Her  life  was  still  controlled 
by  the  student's  thirst  for  knowledge ;  she  was 
well  on  the  way  for  the  honours  of  more  than 
one  degree  and  the  only  idea  she  entertained 
of  possible  mission  work  was  something  on 
conventional  lines  in  accord  with  academic 
principles.  Again,  her  heart  was  far  from 
simplicity.  A  gifted  professor  had  initiated 
her  into  the  insidious  fascinations  of  the  higher 
criticism,  until  even  the  fundamentals  of  her 
faith  were  fast  slipping  out  of  mental  grasp. 
She  shared  the  feelings  of  her  fellow  student, 
who  in,  a  burst  of  mutual  confession  exclaimed : 

"When  I  entered  college  I  believed  every 
word  of  the  Bible.  But  now  I  have  nothing 
left  of  it  but  the  covers." 

Poor  Frederica !  Despite  all  her  glowing 
prospects  of  scholarly  advance,  despite  all  her 
brave  championship  of  good  work  done  by 
others,  she  had  wandered  far  into  the  famine 
land  of  doubt  and  her  soul  was  trying  to 
appease  its  immortal  cravings  upon  theological 
husks. 


THE  CO-ED  103 

One  morning  an  anonymous  envelope  brought 
a  form  of  application  for  the  work  of  the  Sal- 
vation Army.  Disgusted,  Frederica  crumpled 
the  paper  in  her  hand  and  threw  it  into  the 
waste  basket.  Next  morning  the  maid  drew 
her  attention  to  a  carefully  smoothed  out  sheet 
upon  her  desk  with  the  remark  : 

"  Something  you  threw  away  by  mistake, 
miss." 

When  she  went  out  walking,  the  offending 
paper  went  with  her  to  be  flung  contemptu- 
ously among  the  bushes,  but  it  turned  up  again 
the  worse  for  wear  with  a  fellow  student's 
laughing : 

"  There's  only  one  person  in  the  college  who 
owns  Salvation  Army  stuff." 

Something  prevented  the  girl  from  tearing 
it  up,  and  each  time  she  tried  to  lose  it  some 
unexpected  hand  brought  it  back.  At  last  she 
gave  up  the  thought  of  getting  rid  of  it,  and 
let  it  remain  in  her  possession  where  it  tortured 
her  continually.  A  warning  within  told  her 
that  this  was  the  call  of  God  and  that  obe- 
dience to  it  was  the  last  chance  for  her  faith. 
At  last  she  compromised,  and  sent  in  her  ap- 
plication so  worded  as  to  make  it  almost  im- 


104  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

possible  for  her  to  be  accepted,  but  still  Fred- 
erica's  conscience  was  unsatisfied  and  her 
shrewd  mind  recognized  that  the  line  of  least 
resistance  is  at  best  but  a  palliative  measure. 
She  knew  that  sooner  or  later  the  dreaded  issue 
must  be  faced  with  all  the  added  complications 
of  delay. 

The  crisis  came  one  night  in  a  very  small 
prayer-meeting  in  the  Army  Hall.  Frederica 
remembers  no  special  persuasion  that  was 
brought  to  bear  upon  her — it  was  rather  as  if 
she  came  to  an  end  of  herself  and  put  into 
practice  a  watchword  of  the  Army  she  entered, 
"  Let  God  have  all  His  own  way  with  you." 
The  Divinity  of  the  Hand  which  pointed  to 
this  particular  path  was  the  one  rock  of  cer- 
tainty in  the  shifting  sand  of  hopes  and  fears, 
courage  and  cowardice. 

It  is  a  characteristic  of  all  great  emotions  of 
the  soul  that  they  overturn  the  temperament, 
and  that  under  their  influence  the  least  ex- 
pected takes  place.  Thus  under  stress  of  over- 
whelming passion  the  cautious  man  takes  the 
leap  in  the  dark,  the  timid  woman  manifests 
amazon  courage,  the  ignorant  confounds  the 
sages  in  wisdom  and  the  most  self-suflBcient 


THE  CO-ED  105 

spirit  loses  itself  in  the  submission  of  a  little 
child.  Frederica  in  the  crucial  hour  of  her 
consecration  was  no  exception  to  this  rule. 
The  habitual  calculation  of  her  attitude  was 
abandoned,  her  keen  sense  as  to  the  profit  and 
loss  of  any  decision  forgotten,  the  clearness  of 
her  vision  as  to  a  second  step  forsook  her.  At 
the  same  penitent  form  which  had  welcomed 
the  forlorn  hopes  of  her  silk-dress  slumming,  she 
now  knelt  in  blind  abandonment  to  the  Will  of 
God,  her  spirit  that  of  the  greatest  scientist  of 
his  time  who  thus  epitomized  his  repentance : 

''Not  the  Pardon  given  to  Peter, 
Not  the  grace  vouchsafed  to  Paul  j 
But  Thy  pity  Crucified, 
To  the  robber  at  Thy  side, 
For  my  guilt  exceedeth  all. " 

Feeling  herself  less  than  the  least,  she  rose 
with  no  great  flood-tide  of  joy,  but  the  in- 
born consciousness  of  an  eternal  transaction 
made,  of  a  readjusted  relationship  with  the 
Divine,  and  of  all  strife  ended  against  the  pur- 
poses of  God.  In  God's  school  once  again 
Frederica  sat  in  "  the  first  grade." 

Through  the  years  that  have  followed 
Frederica  has  maintained  all  the  attractiveness 


106  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

of  this  childlike  spirit.  Associating  often  with 
comrades  born  in  rougher  cradles  and  educated 
in  experience's  sterner  school,  there  is  never  any 
hint  of  superiority  in  her  attitude.  How 
can  there  be  when  none  exists  in  her  mind 
which  sits  at  the  feet  of  any  who  live  near  her 
Lord? 

By  her  parents  her  conversion  was  regarded 
as  a  case  for  alienists,  while  her  new  associates 
scarcely  understood  at  first  the  Salvationist  co-ed 
who  brought  her  cherished  microscope  as  part 
of  her  outfit  when  she  came  to  the  training 
home.  But  time  has  shown  her  relatives  the 
sanity  and  saintship  of  her  character,  while  she 
has  more  than  won  the  full  confidence  of  her 
fellow  workers. 

The  work  she  has  done  and  is  doing  is 
peculiarly  her  own.  With  the  Army's  facility 
for  finding  square  holes  for  square  pegs  her 
capacity  for  imparting  knowledge  is  not  lost, 
and  she  mingles  education  and  religion  in  a  way 
which  is  delightfully  typical  of  the  student  and 
the  Salvationist — using  her  favourite  Gospel  of 
St.  John  as  a  text-book  in  her  German  class. 
The  grace  of  her  humility  again  manifests  it- 
self   as    she    gathers    gratefully   deep    truths 


THE  CO-ED  107 

dropped  from  the  lips  of  her  small  Army- 
scholars.  Let  Frederica  have  the  last  word  as 
she  tells  of  one — a  boy  whose  fiery  temper  had 
again  and  again  brought  the  quick  tears  of  re- 
pentance. 

"  The  last  time  I  prayed  with  him,"  she  says, 
"  asking  God  to  forgive  him,  he  cried,  '  Oh, 
teacher,  don't  pray  that  way — that's  no  good. 
Ask  God  to  take  the  want  to  kick  out ! '  Look- 
ing back  upon  God's  call  to  me  through  this  dear 
organization — the  path  I  had  so  long  kicked 
against  and  fought  from  following — I  thank 
Him  and  it  most  of  all  for  the  hour  when  the 
'  want  to  kick '  was  taken  out  of  me." 


B 


YII 

K.  O. 

His  gods  were  his  own  two  fists 

ILL  asserts  that  his  uncle  initiated  him 
as  a  pugilist  when  as  a  toddling  infant 
he  lifted  him  up  by  the  ears,  and  letting 
him  down  with  a  bang  exclaimed  to  his  horrified 
mother : 

"  Here's  what  will  make  the  best  man  you've 
got." 

The  little  fellow  set  his  teeth  and  refused  to 
scream,  but  clenched  his  baby  fists,  and  squared 
up  to  his  relative  like  a  bantam  rooster,  much 
to  that  worthy's  sinful  delight. 

There  were  no  truant  officers  in  those  days, 
and  little  did  his  people  suspect  that  all  Bill's 
study  hours  were  spent  in  the  ring  of  a  boxing- 
school  for  which  he  paid  the  quarter  given  him 
each  week  as  pocket  money.  No  one  noticed 
how  tight  the  little  jacket  began  to  grow  with 
the  muscles  swelling  beneath  it.  He  could  al- 
108 


K.  O.  109 

ways  invent  reasons  for  a  black  eye  or  a  swollen 
lip,  and  had  it  not  been  for  a  row  with  his 
brother  at  the  age  of  fourteen  the  secret  might 
have  remained  one  even  longer. 

With  an  intention  one  part  jealousy  and  three- 
fourths  pm-e  mischief  Bill  had  effected  an  es- 
trangement between  this  brother  and  his  girl. 
The  plot  was  so  cleverly  thought  out  that  both 
parties  considered  the  boy  their  champion,  but 
there  was  the  usual  belated  disclosure  and  one 
day  the  elder  bo}''  came  home  with  blue  murder 
in  his  eye,  and  sought  out  Bill  with  the  taunt : 

"  So  you  are  the  smart  kid  that  came  between 
me  and  Lizzie !  " 

"'  Sure  I  am,"  flared  up  the  little  fellow, 
"  and  what's  more,  I'm  a  better  man  than 
you." 

At  this  the  elder's  anger  lost  itself  in  derision. 

"  You  the  best  man — a  little  whipper-snapper 
like  you  !  Come  out  into  the  yard,  and  I'll 
soon  show  you,"  thinking  here  was  an  easy 
way  to  give  BiU  the  licking  he  so  richly  de- 
served. 

The  younger  assented  with  disquieting  alac- 
rity, and  in  a  few  minutes  the  neighbours  were 
all  at  then*  back  windows  looking  down  upon 


110  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

two  brothers  stripped  to  the  waist  and  fighting 
like  furies — at  least  so  fought  the  elder;  but 
Bill  showed  remarkable  coolness  and  remark- 
able skill,  first  in  parrying  the  other's  thrusts 
and  then  in  getting  in  blows  of  his  own.  Sam 
was  head  and  shoulders  taller,  but  he  was  no 
match  for  the  scientific  fight  put  up  by  Bill, 
and  he  was  good  enough  sport  to  take  his  beat- 
ing well. 

"  Wherever  did  you  learn  it,  kid  ?  "  was  all 
he  said  as  he  wiped  his  bleeding  nose. 

News  of  the  fight  spread  like  wild-fire  through 
the  place,  and  the  following  day  a  stranger 
gaudily  dressed  drove  up  and  invited  Bill  to 
take  a  ride.  As  soon  as  they  were  out  of  ear- 
shot, he  disclosed  himself  as  a  "  promoter,"  said 
that  he  had  heard  of  the  whipping  the  boy  had 
given  his  brother  Sam,  and  asked  how  he  would 
like  him  to  get  up  a  fight  for  him  with  Ty 
Lawters.  Ty  Lawters  was  at  that  time  the 
champion  bantam-weight  of  his  country,  and 
Bill's  jaw  dropped  in  amazed  rapture  at  the 
offer.  Without  a  second's  consideration  he  ex- 
claimed with  enthusiasm : 

"  Count  me  on." 

Next  morning  Bill's  mother  was  astonished 


K.  O.  Ill 

and  delighted  by  her  son  remarking  thought- 
fuUy: 

"  Mother,  will  you  let  me  go  over  to  Aunt 
Jane's  for  a  month  or  two  ?  I  think  I'd  like 
to  go  to  school  there." 

The  wily  youngster  knew  this  would  be  a 
trump  card  to  play,  for  although  he  was  nearly 
fifteen  and  splendidly  developed  from  a  physical 
standpoint,  he  could  not  yet  write  his  own  name. 
Aunt  Jane,  who  lived  in  the  next  town,  had 
always  made  a  favourite  of  the  boy  and  the 
mother  never  suspected  any  strategy  in  the 
suggestion.  Delightedly  she  packed  a  little 
basket  of  lunch,  and  giving  him  his  car  fare 
sent  him  off  for  the  noon  train.  But  the  rail- 
way depot  saw  nothing  of  Bill  or  his  basket. 
They  took  a  circuitous  route  to  the  "pro- 
moter's "  house  and  vanishing  within  the  door 
were  lost  to  the  world  for  six  months. 

Then  began  for  poor  Bill  an  experience  stern 
and  grim.  Little  had  he  bargained  for  the 
rigours  of  such  training,  but  his  contract  was 
made,  and  he  would  have  died  rather  than 
break  it.  Chopped  raw  meat  and  burned 
bread  became  his  food,  pommelling  and  knead- 
ing the  daily  treatment  of  his  groaning  body, 


112  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

and  baths,  baths — endless  baths  which  alter- 
nately boiled  and  froze  him  until  only  his  love 
for  the  fight  kept  him  game.  The  daily 
sparring  bout  with  his  trainer  was  the  one  joy 
of  the  life,  and  as  the  weeks  wore  on,  and  every 
ounce  of  superfluous  flesh  left  his  body  in  ex- 
change for  an  iron-like  substance,  and  as  his 
quick  mind  mastered  the  rudiments  of  a  pugi- 
list's art  the  lust  of  conquest  burned  within  him. 

A  week  before  the  fight  Bill  cried  himself  to 
sleep  and  that  same  night  prayed  his  first 
sincere  prayer.  The  cause  of  his  grief  was  his 
failure  to  desert  the  defense  and  follow  up  an 
opening  left  by  his  trainer  which  he  had 
neglected  because  afraid  to  knock  the  in- 
structor down.    His  prayer  was : 

"  O  God,  if  You'll  give  me  as  good  a  chance 
to-morrow  I  promise  You  I  won't  miss  it." 

Next  day  Bill  watched  his  opportunity.  By 
this  time  their  skill  was  about  equal,  but  the 
trainer  was  out  of  condition,  while  Bill  was 
light  now  and  fleet  as  a  cat.  He  ran  in  and 
around  the  other,  and  at  last  when  the  un- 
guarded moment  came  drove  home  a  smasher. 
The  trainer  went  down  and  laid  still,  and  the  boy, 
scared  at  his  own  accomplishment,  fled  from 


K.  O.  113 

the  ring  and  down-stairs.  He  opened  the  first 
door  he  reached,  and  in  his  fighting  togs  created 
a  sensation  among  the  group  of  men  smoking 
and  gambling :  Bill's  own  father,  with  a  stack  of 
gold  and  notes  in  front  of  him,  betting  on  the 
chances  of  his  son. 

"What  kind  of  tomfoolery  is  this?"  ex- 
claimed the  fond  parent.  "  Here  am  I  putting 
up  every  cent  I  own  on  you,  and  you  acting 
up  like  this.  What  is  your  trainer  doing  to 
allow  it  ?  " 

"  Come  and  see,"  cried  BiU,  leaping  back  to 
the  ring. 

They  found  the  trainer  just  lifting  his  bruises 
from  the  floor,  and  as  they  entered  he  raised 
himself  on  one  knee  exclaiming  in  rueful  tri- 
umph : 

"  Put  all  your  money  on  that  fellow.  He'll 
never  let  you  down  ! " 

The  day  before  the  fight  Bill  demanded  per- 
mission to  see  his  mother. 

"  It's  likely  I'll  either  kill  or  be  killed  before 
I  come  back,  and  I  want  to  see  her,"  he  said. 

He  was  refused. 

"  All  right,"  he  returned  with  an  air  of  final- 
ity, "  then  I'U  lose  the  fight." 


114  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

This  was  unthinkable,  but  his  backer  recog- 
nized how  the  odds  mount  up  against  an  un- 
willing fighter  and  acquiesced. 

Into  a  very  happy  and  peaceful  home  inter- 
view, in  which  his  mother  asked  and  received 
much  interesting  news  regarding  Aunt  Jane's 
affairs,  invented  for  the  occasion,  his  sister  burst 
like  a  whirlwind : 

"Oh,  mother,  the  boys  have  just  told  me 
they  are  going  to  walk  all  night  to  Yixboro  to 
see  our  Bill  in  a  prize-fight." 

His  mother's  agony  and  anger  knew  no 
bounds.  She  was  a  university  graduate,  a 
woman  of  culture  and  refinement,  and  such  a 
fate  for  her  boy  sounded  like  a  death  sentence. 

"  Oh,  my  son,  my  son !  Have  I  raised  a 
prize-fighter — never !  you  shall  not  do  this 
thing." 

"  Mother,"  said  Bill  in  despair,  "  if  I  don't 
fight,  pop  will  lose  all  his  money." 

But  she  scarcely  heard  him  in  the  storm  of 
her  reproaches.  At  last  she  sent  the  boy  to  his 
bed,  and  locking  the  front  door,  put  the  key  in 
her  pocket  and  sat  down  for  a  knitting  vigil. 

Outside  the  backers  whispered  in  horrified 
suspense. 


K.  O.  115 

"  Never  fear,"  said.  Bill's  father  who  for 
reasons  of  his  own  had  not  ventured  home  that 
night.  "  I  know  the  stuff  that  boy  is  made 
of — he'll  make  it  somehow." 

While  he  spoke  a  suppressed  laugh  startled 
them,  and  they  turned  to  see  their  candidate 
among  them. 

"  Boy,  you  are  all  right,"  exclaimed  the  pro- 
moter wringing  his  hand.  "  But  how  did  you 
do  it  ? "  Bill,  his  finger  on  his  lips,  pointed 
first  to  the  lighted  window  shade  below  and 
then  to  a  ladder  of  blankets  hanging  from  an 
up-story  window. 

The  dawn  was  barely  creeping  over  the  hills 
when  the  combatants  shook  hands.  It  was 
broad  daylight  when  the  victor's  hand  was  held 
up — the  fight  having  lasted  one  hour  and  twenty 
minutes.  The  champion  was  at  the  onset  rather 
contemptuous ;  he  had  told  his  supporters,  "  I'll 
go  in  to  do  him  up."  Round  after  round  was 
fought  but  still  he  had  not  accomplished  it. 
For  fifteen  rounds  Bill  played  the  defensive  un- 
til his  opponent's  strength  was  pretty  well  ex- 
hausted and  his  temper  too.  Our  hero  was  live 
and  nimble  as  a  young  panther ;  it  seemed  im- 
possible to  catch  him,  and  again  and  again  the 


116  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

crowd  roared  its  glee  as  he  ran  through  the 
other's  longer  arms.  But  there  was  one  man 
who  was  dissatisfied  with  these  tactics,  and  that 
was  Bill's  father  who  stood  up  at  last  and  cried 
in  anger : 

"  What's  the  matter  with  you,  boy  ?  "Whip 
him,  I  say ;  whip  him  or  never  enter  my  door 
again." 

Several  minor  blows  had  been  landed  on  both 
sides,  but  a  yell  went  up  as  the  champion  at 
last  got  in  a  smashing  thrust.  "  Ha  !  "  he  cried. 
"  How'd  you  like  that,  Bill  ?  A  few  more  will 
finish  you  up." 

But  Bill  set  his  teeth  and  muttered,  "  Save 
your  breath,  man.  I'm  coming  out  of  this  ring 
champion."  Now  his  blood  was  up,  and  like 
lightning  he  swung  over  on  to  the  attack  ;  for 
this  Lawters  was  unprepared,  and  a  fierce  body 
blow  sent  him  down  for  the  first  time. 

"  Double  your  ten  to  one  on  the  champion  ?  " 
asked  Bill's  parent  of  his  neighbour. 

"  Nope,"  said  the  other  expectorating  in  dis- 
gust. 

But  Bill's  more  deadly  work  was  yet  to  be 
done,  and  a  look  of  amazed  horror  came  into 
the  champion's  blood-shot  eyes  as  he  felt  his 


K.  O.  117 

head  drawn  into  the  deadly  embrace  of  a 
chancery  lock,  and  blow  after  blow  rained 
down  upon  his  defenseless  face.  "  Time  "  re- 
lieved him  for  the  moment  but  when  they 
stood  up  again  he  was  blind  in  one  eye  and 
his  breath  coming  in  jerks.  "  Ty,"  cried  Bill 
who  was  bleeding  himself,  "  I've  got  you  now — 
my  wind's  as  fresh  as  ever.  Will  you  quit  ?  " 
The  other  was  nearly  "all  in"  but  gasped 
gamely,  "Bill,  I'll  never  quit."  Three  times 
Bill  sent  him  smashing  through  the  ropes  and 
the  third  time  there  was  no  come  back  in  him. 
Banty  Bill  was  champion.  But  it  was  a  very 
stiff  and  sore  conqueror  that  was  carried  back 
to  town,  and  it  took  two  full  months  to  prop- 
erly patch  him  up  again,  for  they  w^ere  fights 
to  a  finish  in  those  days. 

Then  Bill  lost  the  championship — through 
love  of  Lizzie,  his  brother's  old  sweetheart. 
She  loved  Bill  but  hated  his  profession,  and 
swore  she  would  never  marry  him  while  he 
followed  it. 

"  And  if  I  promise  to  quit  ?  " 

Lizzie's  answer  was  not  verbal,  but  Bill 
seemed  to  find  it  wholly  satisfactory. 

Three    idyllic   years  followed     Both  were 


118  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

only  sixteen.  The  fair  little  wife  used  to 
watch  for  her  husband,  and  hand  in  hand 
come  skipping  back.  Night  after  night  they 
played  marbles  in  the  street  together.  Yet 
their  love  for  each  other  was  deeper  though  no 
sweeter  than  their  years,  and  when  a  little 
Bill  came  they  did  not  seem  to  grow  any  older, 
only  happier. 

Lizzie  was  a  Christian  girl,  and  under  her 
influence  the  heart  of  the  boy  pugilist  expanded 
with  new  love  and  reverence  for  what  was 
holy  and  good.  "  My  spoiled  champion  1 "  she 
would  say  in  the  voice  which  was  like  the 
music  of  the  west  wind  in  the  spring  woods. 
Bill  always  answered  her  that  she  had  not 
spoiled  but  made  him  in  all  that  was  worth 
while.     And  so  she  had. 

But  from  this  dream  of  halcyon  bliss  there 
came  a  rude  awakening.  One  day  standing  too 
near  the  edge  of  a  chair  to  dust  her  favourite 
picture  of  the  Saviour,  the  little  housewife 
fell  and  grazed  her  knee  against  a  nail.  She 
hid  the  pain,  but  a  month  later  her  husband 
noticed  she  was  so  lame  she  could  scarcely 
crawl  around,  and  examination  showed  the 
limb    terribly    swollen    and    blackened.    Bill 


K.  O.  119 

rushed  for  a  doctor,  but  the  crisis  had  already 
passed.  "Blood  poisoning,"  was  his  verdict, 
and  the  only  chance  for  her  life  an  immediate 
operation.  Yery  bravely  the  girl  submitted  to 
the  ordeal,  but  it  was  too  late.  Only  ten  min- 
utes and  she  murmm^ed : 

"  Bill,  Bill,  where  are  you  ?  I  cannot  see 
you  any  more,"  and  with  her  hand  upon  his 
head  slipped  forever  away. 

The  world  is  strangely  intolerant  of  the  de- 
spair of  youth,  and  the  doctor,  looking  down 
pityingly  upon  the  frantic  young  man,  smiled 
inwardly  as  he  heard  him  say : 

"  Lizzie,  girl,  I'll  never  put  another  in  your 
place." 

He  was  only  nineteen  when  she  left  him,  but 
he  kept  his  word. 

"With  the  passing  of  his  girl  wife,  all  that 
was  best  in  BiU's  nature  seemed  to  wither  and 
die.  Her  parents  took  the  baby,  and  there  was 
nothing  to  hold  the  boy  widower  in  the  new 
paths  of  peace  to  which  love  had  won  him. 
He  had  no  trade,  he  had  nothing  to  work  for, 
in  his  own  family  he  was  a  discontented  and 
disagreeable  addition;  instinctively  his  steps 
turned  back  towards  pugilism,  and  one  day  the 


120  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

"promoter's"  face  gladdened  at  the  sight  of 
Bill's  and  his  words : 

"  I  want  you  to  train  me  for  another  fight." 
Naturally  the  first  aim  of  both  was  to  get 
back  the  bantam-weight  championship  which 
he  had  lost  during  his  three  years'  absence 
from  the  ring.  This  time  it  was  no  long- 
drawn-out  fight,  for  sorrow  had  changed  the 
good-natured  youngster  into  a  hard-featured, 
hard-fisted  man,  and  he  fought  with  a  reckless- 
ness as  to  personal  injury  which  sent  his  oppo- 
nents down  one  after  another.  It  is  a  strange 
thing  in  prize-fighting  as  in  all  else,  that  the 
man  who  cares  nothing  for  his  life  rarely  man- 
ages to  lose  it.  In  his  first  fight  after  his 
return  to  the  ring  he  wrested  the  champion- 
ship for  his  own  again  in  fifteen  minutes. 
There  was  no  acting  on  the  defensive  now ; 
his  first  blow  told — on  the  other's  jugular  vein, 
and  it  was  soon  up  with  him. 

Fight  followed  fight  thick  and  fast.  For 
twenty-five  years  Banty  Bill  kept  a  place  in 
the  ring.  During  the  whole  of  his  British 
championship,  and  the  first  part  of  his  Amer- 
ican experience,  he  remained  a  temperate  man  ; 
not  from  any  moral  scruple  but  because  he 


K.  O.  121 

knew  only  so  could  he  keep  in  condition, 
righting  was  the  spice  of  life  to  him ;  his  gods 
were  his  own  two  fists,  and  he  lived  but  for  the 
fraj,  which  many  times  came  near  being  a 
mortal  one — for  the  other  fellow  !  A  challenge 
from  a  vanquished  compatriot  brought  him  to 
the  States.  He  was  getting  older  by  this  time, 
and  knew  that  age  must  give  him  the  count 
sooner  or  later,  and  he  thought  what  if  that 
date  came  a  fev/  days  sooner  for  a  glass  of 
champagne.  But  the  drinking  left  its  mark  in 
flabby  muscles,  increasing  weight  and  worst  of 
all  in  a  weakening  of  the  deadly  punch  which 
had  been  the  secret  of  his  fame  as  a  pugilist. 
Bill  was  only  once  knocked  out,  but  he  knew 
he  could  no  longer  stand  up  against  the  best. 
More  and  more  champagne  drowned  his  shame, 
as  he  hired  himself  to  the  proprietor  of  a 
Western  dive  sparring  at  fifty  dollars  per  night. 
This  meant  no  sleep,  and  Bill's  blood-shot  eyes 
became  haggard  for  want  of  it.  There  are 
never  lacking  recommenders  of  the  deadly 
opiate,  and  before  long  he  was  getting  his 
sleep  on  opium  through  the  day.  The  dose  was 
increased  again  and  yet  again,  until  the  broken- 
down  fighter  was  not  worth  even  fifty  dollars 


122  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

a  night.  Yet  even  as  a  drug  fiend  his  muscle* 
were  some  asset,  and  when  sufficiently  in  h/s 
senses  to  keep  his  feet  a  saloon-keeper  gave  him 
five  dollars  to  make  a  show  for  his  patrons.  It 
was  a  pitiful  sight  to  see  the  sometimes  drunk, 
more  often  drugged,  pugilist  thus  standing  at 
bay — his  mighty  strength  like  Samson's  at  the 
mercy  of  his  enemies. 

One  Christmas  night  the  stars  looked  down 
upon  a  huddled  mass  lying  in  the  mud  of  the 
street  which  was  all  that  was  left  of  the  ex- 
champion.  The  companions  who  had  baited 
him  the  night  before  to  give  them  sport  had 
forsaken  him — he  was  alone  in  his  degrada- 
tion. 

Footfalls  came  and  passed,  sometimes  with 
an  expression  of  pity,  more  frequently  with  a 
shudder  of  disgust,  but  at  last  steps  halted  be- 
side him,  and  a  kind  hand  touched  him.  A  lit- 
tle group  of  Salvationists  bent  over  him,  the 
starlight  reflecting  the  glow  of  compassion  in 
the  ej'^es  of  all  three. 

"  We  cannot  leave  him  here,"  said  a  woman's 
voice. 

"  He  shall  be  our  guest,"  said  a  man's. 

Then  the  more  than  half-doped  Bill  felt  him- 


K.  O.  123 

self  hoisted  on  two  shoulders  nearly  as  broad 
as  his  own,  although  he  did  not  realize  that  he 
was  being  carried  on  the  Captain's  back,  much 
to  the  detriment  of  the  Captain's  uniform  coat 
over  which  the  mud  was  streaming.  When  he 
came  to  himself,  he  was  before  the  stove  of  a 
hotel,  the  proprietor  looking  down  upon  him 
rather  contemptuously. 

"  The  Salvation  Army  Captain  carried  you 
here,"  he  responded  to  Bill's  questioning  look, 
"  He  cleaned  you  off  and  paid  for  your  supper. 
When  you've  had  it  I'm  to  take  you  to  the 
meeting." 

Surprise  completely  sobered  Bill.  People 
had  been  all  too  ready  to  rob  him  when  he 
could  not  take  care  of  himself,  but  such  treat- 
ment as  this  was  utterly  beyond  his  compre- 
hension. In  the  meeting  that  night  he  sat  a 
poor,  bewildered  soul  on  the  front  bench.  His 
mind,  still  heavy  with  dope,  struggled  over  the 
problem — what  could  have  made  these  people 
do  so  much  for  him  ?  It  was  more  than  the 
men  who  made  money  out  of  him  had  ever 
stooped  to  do.  Suddenly  light  broke;  tears 
gushed  out.  The  spu'it  of  God  connected  the 
links  of  conscience  and  memory  and  crying : 


124  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

"  It's  Lizzie's  God — let  me  find  Him,"  he  fell  at 
the  penitent's  bench. 

There  a  power  which  he  knew  not  laid  hold 
of  him.  It  cleared  his  mind,  it  melted  his 
heart,  and  like  a  little  child  the  strong,  weak 
man  felt  the  chain  of  his  sins  slip  from  him  and 
underneath  him  the  Everlastmg  Arms.  More 
than  a  score  of  years  have  set  their  seal  to  the 
Divinity  of  that  deliverance. 

And  what  of  the  ruling  passion  ?  As  clean 
living  put  him  into  condition  again,  and  his 
muscles  relocked  their  iron  bands,  as  he  saw  at 
the  age  of  forty-six  he  had  yet  to  learn  his  first 
real  trade,  did  Banty  Bill  feel  the  ring  claiming 
him? 

He  never  entered  it  again  nor  wanted  to,  but 
there  came  a  day  when  he  fought  once  more. 
Remember,  condemnatory  reader,  trained  in  the 
culture  of  peace  and  the  arts  of  self-restraint, 
that  until  middle  life  only  the  brute  side  of  this 
man's  nature  had  been  developed,  and  do  not 
sentence  him  too  soon.  He  had  only  been  con- 
verted a  few  months  when  one  day  a  tough  of 
the  neighbourhood  insulted  the  officer  who  had 
been  the  saviour  of  Bill's  wrecked  career.  All 
the  dormant  chivalry  of  the  man  sprang  into 


K.  O.  125 

resentful  life,  and  he  thanked  God  he  had  his 
strength  again.  The  meeting  was  in  process 
but  Bill  slipped  out  unnoticed  and  found  his 
man,  who  reviled  the  Salvationist  again  in 
terms  unprintable. 

"Will  you  take  that  back?"  said  the  new 
convert  with  set  teeth. 

"With  many  oaths  the  man  swore  that  he 
would  not. 

"  Then  stand  up  and  take  your  medicine  from 
Banty  Bill,"  said  oar  hero. 

"  But  you  daren't  fight,"  sneered  the  other. 
"  You'll  lose  your  religion." 

"Look  here."  Bill  was  not  fighting  in  hot 
blood  but  felt  himself  the  chosen  avenger  and 
could  afford  to  be  deliberate.  Pointing  to  a 
window  ledge,  "  See  that  ?  Well,  I'll  put  my 
religion  there  on  that  shelf  with  my  coat  till  I 
get  through  with  you." 

Those  who  witnessed  that  combat  talk  of  it 
still. 

Then,  when  the  much  cowed  and  frightened 
insulter  had  spat  out  his  apology  and  four  teeth. 
Bill  washed  his  hands  and  taking  his  religion 
and  his  coat  from  the  shelf,  slipped  into  the 
meeting  by  the  back  door  and  took  his  place  on 


126  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

the  platform  again  without  having  been  missed 
from  his  place. 

But  who  among  us  shall  dare  to  judge  poor 
Bill,  and  say  that  his  religion  was  shelved  that 
day? 


VIII 

THE  EAPIDS 

PVith  the  broken  heart  of  our  city  street^  the  broken 
heart  is  the  cause^  the  street  the  effect 

THE  eye's  first  sight  of  America's 
supreme  spectacle  is  an  event  inefface- 
able on  the  vision  of  memory.  Second 
and  third  visits  may  reveal  new  wonders  in  the 
Falls  and  fresh  aspects  of  their  chameleon  hue 
and  form,  but  it  is  a  question  whether  the  in- 
stinctive impression  created  by  a  wonder  of 
nature  is  not  always  the  truest  as  well  as  the 
most  lasting,  "With  the  writer,  initial  remem- 
brance is  not  of  the  mighty  cataract  itself  nor 
even  of  that  more  sinister  wonder,  the  whirl- 
pool ;  the  mention  of  Niagara  calls  up  before 
her  mind  that  which  from  the  first  made  the 
greatest  impression  upon  it — the  intervening 
rapids.  Readers  who  have  looked  upon  this 
awe-inspiring  picture  will  remember  the  deep, 
swift  waters  which  tempestuously  make  their 
inevitable  way  from  falls  to  maelstrom.  The 
lakes  in  mighty  union  sweep  over  their  precipi- 
127 


128  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

tous  doom,  appear  to  halt  for  an  instant's 
stupefaction  in  the  cavern  beneath,  and  then 
plunge  headlong  into  the  rapids  which  terminate 
in  countless  contortions  of  a  bottomless  abyss. 
These  wrecked  and  despairing  waters  fascinated 
and  fastened  my  gaze  as  if  upon  a  living  victim, 
and  when  my  pen  is  lifted  to  sketch  one  of  the 
saddest  figures  of  modern  misery  the  simile 
irresistibly  suggests  itself. 

There  is  no  fallacy  more  unjust  and  cruel 
than  the  premise  that  women  who  have 
wandered  into  the  far  country  of  a  life  of 
shame  are  eating  iniquity's  husks  because 
husks  are  their  depraved  taste.  Almost  unex- 
ceptionally  with  the  broken  heart  of  our  city 
street,  the  broken  heart  is  the  cause — the  street 
the  effect.  The  betrayal  of  a  nature  which 
has  never  learned  restraint,  the  defenselessness 
of  ignorance  against  the  intelligence  of  infamy, 
the  blinding,  bewildering  discovery  of  her  own 
passionate  heart — some  such  tragedy  has  over- 
whelmed her  and  she  has  gone  over  the  falls. 
Frantic  over  the  irretrievable  loss  of  the  pearl  of 
her  womanhood,  urged  onward  and  downward 
alike  by  the  forces  of  her  owti  utter  despair 
and  the  bitterness  of  the  world's  verdict,  the 


THE  EAPIDS  129 

only  hands  outstretched  to  her  hands  engulfed 
in  the  flood-tides  of  sin — with  no  retreat  pos- 
sible nor  truce  to  be  made  with  fate  she  surges 
down  to  the  vortex  of  a  life  of  shame.  The 
most  crucial  hour  of  frail  and  falling  woman- 
hood is  the  hour  of  her  first  remorse — alas,  that 
it  should  so  often  be  her  hour  of  all  most  calam- 
itous. 

The  hospital  door  closed  behind  her.  Al- 
ready the  cold  officialism  of  its  etherized 
atmosphere  seemed  kinder  by  comparison  with 
the  disinterested  air  of  the  street.  She  had 
been  the  only  patient  in  her  ward  to  whom  the 
day  of  discharge  had  been  unwelcome.  Lucie 
shivered  as  she  realized  that  she  had  nowhere  to 
go — that  there  was  not  a  roof  under  which  she 
might  claim  shelter.  A  faint  movement  of 
the  soft  bundle  in  her  arms  made  her  shiver 
again — life's  problem  had  been  difficult  enough 
before ;  it  looked  hopeless  with  this  added 
burden. 

Curious  eyes  halted  upon  the  irresolute  figure 
upon  the  hospital  steps.  She  became  painfully 
conscious  of  the  child  in  her  arms.  "  Come, 
come,  no  loitering,"  said  a  policeman,  and  aim- 
lessly and  listlessly  Lucie  moved  on. 


130  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

Home  and  help  she  had  none.  Only  one 
message  had  come  from  her  parents — a  brief 
expression  of  their  hope  never  to  look  again 
upon  the  face  of  the  daughter  who  had  be- 
smirched an  honest  name.  Kinder  but  more 
perplexing  was  a  note  from  her  late  employer : 

"  I  am  willing  to  give  you  another  chance, 
Lucie,  if  you  come  alone.  I  cannot  have  the 
child  to  advertise  your  disgrace  in  my  kitchen." 

Yet  another  voice  rang  in  her  ears,  longest 
and  most  insistent — the  voice  of  a  fellow 
patient.  This  woman  had  flattered  and  com- 
miserated Lucie  when  every  one  else  had 
shunned  her,  and  when  she  had  loathed  and 
hated  herself. 

ii'  "  Of  course,"  said  this  insidious  comforter, 
"  she  could  not  go  back  to  her  old  friends,  but 
there  were  lots  of  new  ones  with  whom  she 
might  make  up.  She  must  hold  her  head  high 
and  make  the  most  of  her  pretty  face  while  it 
lasted,  and  she  might  have  a  right  smart  time 
yet  if  she  cared.  The  first  thing  was  to  dispose 
of  the  baby  " — then  followed  a  whispered  sug- 
gestion which  made  Lucie's  cheek  flame  and  to 
which  she  shook  her  head. 

But  now  alone  and  absolutely  without  re- 


THE  EAPIDS  131 

sources,  this  advice  returned  to  her  as  the  only 
course  possible.  The  afternoon  shadows  were 
lengthening.  Lucie  was  growing  weak  and 
faint,  and  the  child  moaned  fretfully,  awaken- 
ing no  pity  in  the  breast  of  its  unwilling  young 
mother.  She  only  felt  irritated,  and  more  and 
more  impatient  to  be  free  to  live  the  only  life 
she  thought  left  to  such  as  her.  Call  her 
attitude  unnatural  if  you  will,  but  analyze  the 
force  of  her  circumstances  and  agree  that  the 
illustration  is  not  strained  which  likens  her  and 
her  kind  to  rapids  on  their  way  to  the  whirl- 
pool. 

That  night  before  the  door  of  an  eminently 
respectable  house  in  an  eminently  respectable 
street  lay  a  little  helpless  bundle — the  uncon- 
scious legacy  of  the  wide-eyed  girl  fast  fleeing 
towards  the  underworld  of  a  great  city. 

" '  Put  the  little  fellow  on  his  father's  door- 
step,' she  said.  Well,  I've  done  it,  and  now  for 
life — what's  left  of  it,"  thought  Lucie  as  she 
ran. 

But  Lucie's  revenge  was  short-lived.  In  her 
calculations  she  had  overlooked  the  fact  that 
her  betrayer,  who  had  been  an  honoured  guest 
in  the  home  of  her  late  mistress,  was  a  rich  man. 


132  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

Wealth  is  too  often  equally  powerful  to  hide  and 
to  discover,  and  the  same  means  which  shielded 
his  name  hounded  hers  down.  Anyway,  Lu- 
cie was  too  unskilled  in  the  art  of  deception 
to  successfully  cover  her  tracks,  and  within 
twenty-four  hours  her  fi'ightened,  pretty  face 
showed  white  like  that  of  a  scared  rabbit  in  the 
gloom  of  a  police  dock  to  answer  a  charge  of 
desertion. 

The  Army's  embassy  in  the  police  court  is 
one  of  its  best  representations.  "Whether  it 
appears  as  the  champion  of  wronged  childhood, 
as  the  last  hope  of  dethroned  and  defaced 
womanhood,  or  as,  in  the  present  case,  the 
friend  who  turns  the  scale  of  destiny  for  the 
betrayed,  its  presence  is  alike  timely.  In  many 
instances  the  Kescue  Home  matron  is  herself  a 
Probationary  Officer — when  she  is  not,  the 
officials  know  how  to  find  her  and  how  well  to 
count  upon  her. 

"  Can  you  give  her  a  chance  ?  " 

A  gentle  woman  with  thirty  years'  experience 
of  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  sinners  and 
"  sinned-againsts  "  answered  the  court's  appeal 
with  eager  assent,  and  before  nightfall  helpless 
twenty  days  and  equally  helpless  twenty  years 


THE  EAPIDS  133 

were  sheltered  under  the  roof  tree  which  has  in 
its  merciful  history  so  many  times  repeated 
itself  as  the  synonym  of  protection  and  peace. 

Dazed  by  disaster  Lucie  did  not  show  herself 
immediately  grateful.  She  was  glad  enough  to 
get  out  of  the  clutches  of  the  law  but  the  res- 
toration of  her  baby  was  a  more  dubious  bless- 
ing. It  had  been  so  impressed  upon  her  that 
life  would  be  impossible  with  this  encumbrance 
that  it  took  some  days'  absorption  of  the  home 
atmosphere  to  make  her  feel  otherwise.  Verbal 
sermons  are  few  within  these  walls ;  even  the 
meetings  are  chiefly  composed  of  singing,  but 
every  ofiicer's  smile,  every  room  full  of  healthful 
and  pleasant  occupation,  every  wall  with  its 
heart-lifting  mottoes,  above  all  the  cheerful 
visits  of  old  inmates  who  are  making  good, 
preaches  many  and  effectual  sermons,  and  the 
text  is  always  the  same — hope. 

Lucie's  disappointed,  half-demented  spirit 
was  no  proof  against  the  sweet,  sane  influences 
by  which  she  was  surrounded.  As  is  so  often 
the  case,  the  wholesale  condemnation  of  her 
world  had  resulted  in  her  own  complete  vindica- 
tion of  herself — the  instinctive  feeling  of  the 
wronged  to  exonerate   itself  from  all  wrong 


134  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

being  one  of  the  most  demoralizing  effects  of 
such  situations.  But  now  the  compass  of  con- 
science readjusted,  that  magnetic  needle  of  the 
soul  pointed  as  it  always  does  aAvay  from  the 
sins  of  others  to  the  sins  of  self,  and  Lucie's  pity 
for  Lucie  lost  itself  in  penitence.  Less  than  a 
week  after  her  rescue  from  the  rapids,  with  the 
matron's  arm  round  her,  this  girl  who  had 
expected  every  one  to  shrink  from  her  bathed 
her  wounded  heart  in  its  best  balm — contrition. 

"What  was  the  first  impulse  of  the  regenerated 
soul  ?  The  righting  of  her  capsized  womanhood. 
With  the  new  birth  came  the  dawn  of  mother 
love  in  her  heart.  Her  first  cry  was  for  the 
child,  and  clasping  him  to  her  breast  she  cried : 

"  To  think  how  nearly  I  lost  you,  my  own 
little  one.  You  shall  never  leave  my  arms 
again.  God  and  these  good  people  will  help 
me  to  care  for  you  always." 

Seven  years  have  sevenfold  increased  her  joy 
and  pride  in  the  little  fellow.  The  girl  has 
refused  every  opportunity  for  his  adoption,  and 
many  lucrative  positions  for  herself  where  she 
might  not  keep  him  by  her  side.  Every 
thought  and  hope  of  her  heart  seems  bound  up 
in  him,  and  every  year  of  her  struggle  upwards 


THE  EAPIDS  135 

her  foot  lias  been  firmer  and  her  brow  clearer, 
while  the  shadow  has  faded  from  her  eyes  as 
she  has  looked  into  the  clear  young  orbs  whose 
smile  has  taken  the  sting  out  of  shame. 

"  But  this  is  only  what  we  have  come  to  ex- 
pect," said  the  matron  in  telling  us  the  story ; 
"  the  hand  of  her  little  child  is  the  strongest 
lever  in  lifting  and  holding  the  mother." 


IX 

THE  BALLOONIST 

"  They're  fine  at  fixing  folks*' 

«  "W  IT  THAT   do  you  know  about   aero- 
\l\     nautics  ?  " 

Not  even  the  dictionary  defi- 
nition of  the  word  if  young  Gus  had  spoken 
the  truth.  But  not  idly  had  his  mother  called 
him  her  "  eldest  and  sassiest,"  and  he  answered 
glibly : 

"  If  that  is  Chinese  for  '  going  up,'  I  know 
what  it  is  by  doing  it." 

"Where  did  you  make  an  ascent?"  asked 
the  professional  without  taking  his  eyes  from 
the  tangle  of  silk  and  rope  over  which  he  was 
working. 

"  Franeham  Fair  last  fall." 

Then   the  balloonist  lifted  his  eyes  for  the 
first  time,  and  surveyed  the  aspirant  for  aerial 
honours,  as  he  stood  before  him  dusty  from  a 
long  trip  in  a  "  side  door  Pullman." 
136 


THE  BALLOONIST  137 

"For  your  age,  young  man,"  he  remarked 
leisurely,  "you're  a  plaguey  good  liar.  I 
worked  myself  at  Franeham  Fair  last  fall — 
I'm  the  only  balloonist  that's  ever  been  up 
there.  But  I  like  your  nerve,  and  as  it's  the 
big  essential  in  my  job  I'll  take  you  on.  Start 
right  in  with  the  sewing." 

This  sounded  tame,  but  Gus  was  too  anxious 
to  make  good  to  raise  objections.  It  was  smok- 
ing hot  in  the  aeronaut's  parkmg  place  and  as 
he  perspmngly  wrestled  hour  after  hour  with 
seemingly  endless  yards  of  heavy  silk,  all  that 
was  ease-loving  in  the  boy's  nature  mentally 
pitied  him  for  a  fool.  But  when  the  afternoon 
coohng,  and  his  work  done,  he  stood  aside  to 
watch  the  filling  gas  transform  the  inert  mass 
into  buoyant  life,  then  saw  it,  released,  spring 
into  the  air  and  soar  with  majestic  grace  up 
into  the  blue,  a  slim,  white-clad  figure  gracefully 
swinging  by  one  arm,  all  the  boy's  adventurous 
soul  swelled  as  he  exclaimed  : 

"  It's  a  bully  job  all  right,  and  I've  got  to 
take  that  chap's  place  some  day." 

His  chance  came  sooner  than  might  have 
been  expected.  One  day  an  illuminated  night 
ascent  was  to  supplement  the  usual  afternoon's 


138  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

performance,  an  additional  sensation,  being 
the  waving  of  a  torch  by  the  aeronaut  when 
high  in  air.  But  the  man  under  contract  for 
the  event  managed  to  be  missing.  The  man- 
ager was  frantic — the  rumour  that  one  of  his 
performers  had  "  cold  feet "  would  be  suicidal 
to  his  business,  as  well  as  likely  to  exert  a  de- 
moralizing effect  upon  other  members  of  the 
small  company.  In  his  perplexity  his  eyes  fell 
upon  the  roguish  face  of  his  new  employee  and 
half  in  jest  he  said : 

"  Boy,  are  you  game  to  ride  to-night  in  Sam's 
place  ?  " 

"  Do  you  mean  it  ?  "  Every  feature  of  Gus's 
face  was  bathed  with  the  glory  of  his  feelings, 
and  when  he  found  that  the  manager  would 
stand  by  his  invitation,  he  nearly  lost  his 
chance  by  throwing  his  head  back  in  one  pro- 
longed yell  until  the  manager's  hand  came 
down  upon  his  mouth  with  the  stinging  re- 
minder : 

"  Let  others  do  the  yelling,  boy,  when  you 
go  up.  You  can  do  yours  when  you  get  safe 
down  again." 

That  night  without  any  rehearsal  at  all 
Gus  made   his  first   ascent,   and   when   at   a 


THE  BALLOOIs^IST  139 

giddy  height  waved  his  flaming  torch  above 
cheering  thousands.  After  the  first  inward 
convulsion  common  to  all  who  for  the  first 
time  reverse  tlie  law  of  gravitation,  and  the 
short  but  sickening  suspense  between  the  drop 
and  the  opening  parachute  Gus  suifered  little 
inconvenience  and  his  native  pluck  saving  him 
from  any  suspicion  of  stage  fright,  he  alighted 
with  a  composure  phenomenal  after  a  first 
ascent. 

"  Boy,  you're  born  for  a  balloonist,"  said  the 
manager.    "  This  won't  be  your  last  experience." 

"  Can't  keep  a  good  man  down,"  retorted 
Gus  rather  cheekily. 

Some  weeks  afterwards  a  middle-aged  man 
and  woman  made  their  way  through  the  fair 
grounds  to  the  aeronauts.  Gus's  face  fell  when 
he  saw  them,  ejaculating : 

"  My  stars,  here's  dad  and  mother — guess  it's 
all  up  with  me  and  the  job  now." 

From  which  it  will  be  seen  that  Gus  was  the 
prodigal  of  his  family.  Yet  all  his  misdoings 
could  be  classified  under  one  head — mischief. 
He  teased  the  girls,  and  outwitted  the  boys, 
and  "sassed"  the  teachers  until  his  father  had 
to  appear  before  the  school  committee  to  per- 


140  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

suade  them  to  continue  the  culprit's  education. 
"  Your  last  and  only  chance,"  his  father  had 
said  when  the  boy  went  up  to  high  school. 
Gus  lost  it.  Four  days  afterwards  he  let  two 
white  mice  loose  in  the  class  room — the  boys 
yelled,  the  girls  screamed,  the  professor  came 
in  and  stormed,  and  Gus  was  unconditionally 
expelled.  His  father's  words  were  still  in  his 
ears — the  only  course  open  to  him  seemed  to 
run  away,  which  he  did  by  the  aid  of  some 
cash  stolen  on  his  behalf  by  a  boy  pal.  For 
four  years  his  parents  had  lost  all  trace  of  him, 
then  one  day  a  neighbour  had  recognized  the 
youth  ballooning  in  another  town,  and  they  had 
made  haste  to  find  and  fetch  him.  But  the 
prodigal  looked  anything  but  repentant,  or,  if 
truth  must  be  told,  glad  to  see  them. 

"  Son,  don't  you  think  it's  time  you  came 
home  ?  "  said  the  father  in  a  choking  voice. 

The  mother  said  nothing,  yet  her  brimming 
eyes  had  that  in  them  which  nearly  did  for  the 
boy's  bravado.  But  after  the  man  had  had  a 
drink  all  softness  left  his  manner — he  swore  his 
son  should  make  no  more  ascents,  and  that  he 
would  have  the  law  on  the  manager  if  he  did. 
They  took  Gus  in  tow  to  keep  him  in  sight  as 


THE  BALLOONIST  141 

they  went  round  the  grounds,  but  a  country 
fair  is  the  easiest  place  to  lose  oneself,  and 
while  his  parents  stood  open  mouthed  before 
some  side-show  Gus  slipped  away.  When  at 
the  usual  time  the  ascent  was  made,  two  of  the 
spectators  formed  quite  a  counter  attraction  as 
they  recognized  their  son  in  the  ascendent. 

"  The  young  rascal  has  gone  up  after  all," 
cried  his  mother. 

The  father's  exclamation  we  will  leave  to  the 
imagination  of  the  reader — it  was  sufficiently 
illuminating  as  to  his  state  of  mind. 

But  Gus  squared  things  by  returning  with 
them  in  apparent  penitence.  For  two  long 
weeks  he  stayed  in  but  not  of  the  home  life ; 
then  the  wanderlust  which  had  fretted  him  all 
the  time  would  not  be  denied,  and  he  again 
disappeared.  This  time  they  did  not  seek  to 
bring  him  back. 

Gus  returned  to  his  chosen  calling,  and  for 
five  years  played  the  part  of  a  professional 
balloonist,  sharing  alike  the  fame  and  danger 
common  to  such  a  livelihood.  His  weight  and 
build  and  absolute  fearlessness  all  combined  to 
make  him  an  ideal  performer.  He  became  an 
expert  at  the  "  toe-hang  "  and  the  "  teeth-hang  " 


142  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

and  made  descents  by  parachutes  three  and 
four  in  succession,  besides  being  a  regular  acro- 
bat and  going  through  all  sorts  of  stunts  in  the 
air. 

The  professional  set  was  fast  enough,  and 
Gus  was  in  for  any  devilment  going  round ; 
only  drink  had  no  fascination  for  him.  The 
only  time  he  was  ever  drunk  was  once  as  a  boy 
when  some  one  put  whiskey  in  a  glass  of  ginger 
ale  and  the  remembrance  of  his  humiliation  has 
been  lifelong.  Gus  did  not  like  anything  that 
made  him  feel  small,  and  of  course  his  absti- 
nence from  all  liquor  increased  his  value  as  an 
aeronaut.  But  cigarettes  he  consumed  by  the 
score,  and  although  he  often  made  big  money 
he  had  never  a  cent  ahead,  living  the  luxurious 
hand  to  mouth  existence  of  his  kind. 

"When  the  cold  weather  closed  ballooning  for 
the  season  Gus  disappeared.  For  the  winter 
months  he  left  no  address.  During  this  in- 
terval he  rarely  did  a  day's  work — his  early 
experience  after  running  away  as  a  "  kid 
panhandler  "  stood  him  in  good  stead,  and  the 
saying  among  his  pals  was,  "  The  fellow  that 
Gus  can't  bluff  a  dime  out  of  is  a  skinner  for 
sure."    Such  an  adept  beggar  was  often  left  to 


THE  BALLOONIST  143 

collect  for  the  gang.  One  day  when  he  and  a 
pal  were  "  doing  "  opposite  sides  of  the  street 
the  other  man  had  not  a  cent  to  show  against 
his  own  three  dollars  odd.  Although  this  man 
had  made  a  show  of  stopping  all  passers-by 
and  had  received  something  from  the  majority 
in  order  to  "  save  his  face  "  with  Gus,  he  had 
simply  asked  for  a  match  knowing  that  his 
companion  would  bring  in  enough  for  two ! 

During  these  days  companions  were  of  the 
toughest,  for  Gus  had  cut  loose  from  all  re- 
straints of  religion  or  respectability.  The  un- 
mistakable marks  of  dissipation  upon  his  still 
boyish  face  told  that,  like  all  who  Phoebus-like 
snatch  the  reins  from  self-control,  he  was  being 
dragged  earthward  by  the  "  heavier  chains  of 
liberty,"  and  though  each  season  Gus  went 
higher  in  his  aerial  flights,  in  his  moral  nature 
he  was  sinking  rapidly. 

For  five  years  it  seemed  as  if  the  sword  of 
Damocles  which  hangs  over  such  a  precarious 
profession  would  spare  him.  Up  till  the  time  of 
his  last  ascent,  his  most  serious  mishap  had 
been  the  loss  of  a  tooth  kicked  out  by  a  female 
performer  with  whom  he  has  making  what 
they  call  "  a  double,"  Gus  in  his  celebrated  "  toe- 


144  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

hang  " ;  an  occasion  when  his  temper  endan- 
gered his  neck  more  than  the  accident. 

But  beside  him  he  had  seen  many  a  pal  fall 
to  his  fate.  One  of  these  men  was  the  son  of 
balloonist  parents,  both  of  whom  had  met  the 
same  tragic  end.  At  one  iU-starred  exhibition 
in  which  he  appeared,  seven  of  his  fellow  per- 
formers, two  men  and  three  girls,  were  killed 
in  as  many  weeks.  But  their  places  were  fiUed 
and  the  show  went  on. 

"  We  always  knew  that  death  might  be  part 
of  any  one  of  our  day's  work,"  says  Gus.  "  Yet 
we  thought  less  of  it  than  the  public."  Gus 
himself  never  once  suffered  from  cold  feet,  or, 
as  professional  parlance  puts  it,  he  never  had  a 
"  hunch."  But  only  one  man  in  a  hundred  is 
immune  from  disaster,  and  Gus  was  one  of  the 
ninety-nine.  Doing  one  day  a  fancy  stunt  that 
he  had  often  accomplished  with  success,  that  of 
jumping  from  parachute  to  parachute,  after 
making  two  of  them  successfully  he  was  reach- 
ing for  the  third  when  in  some  unexplainable 
way  he  lost  his  grip  on  the  bar  and  fell  over 
sixty  feet.  A  broken  leg  and  arm,  a  smashed 
nose  and  chin  and  other  injuries  laid  Gus  in 
ruins. 


THE  BALLOONIST  145 

At  last  he  struggled  back  to  a  hospital  con- 
valescence and — despair.  Intuition  told  him 
that  despite  the  surgeon's  clever  patchwork  he 
would  never  ride  again,  for  he  felt  his  nerve 
gone.  The  balloon  troupe  had  passed  on  to  an- 
other town — for  the  first  time  Gus  felt  himself 
stranded.  He  clung  to  the  morphine  given  him 
for  the  pain  of  his  wounds.  A  patient  in  a 
neighbouring  bed,  also  a  professional  in  a  less 
legitimate  line,  eyed  him  curiously. 

"  Got  anything  to  start  on,  old  fellow  ?  "  he 
asked  laconically. 

"Nope,"  returned  Gus.  "Don't  care  much 
whether  I  ever  start  at  all." 

"  Bad  business,"  said  the  crook.  "  Here's  ten 
dollars— never  mind  how  I  came  by  it.  You 
can  buy  enough  dope  to  comfort  and  kill  you, 
or  you  can  use  it  to  get  as  far  away  from  this 
town  as  it  will  take  you." 

Characteristically  he  offered  no  advice  as  to 
the  choice,  but  outside  the  hospital  love  of  life 
came  back  to  Gus,  and  he  celebrated  his  re- 
covery with  a  spree  that  nearly  put  him  on  his 
back  again. 

There  is  nothing  more  dreaded  by  the  horti- 
culturist than  the  ravages  of  the  parasite — the 


146  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

vine  or  creeper  which  draws  its  sole  nutriment 
from  a  hardier,  more  independent  growth  in- 
evitably weakened  by  this  thief  of  its  vitality. 
No  less  menacing  to  the  life  of  the  community 
is  the  human  parasite,  the  man  who  from  in- 
clination, habit  or  heredity  has  reversed  the 
obligations  of  the  primeval  curse  and  eats  his 
bread  by  the  sweat  of  another's  brow.  The 
parasite  is  the  professional  sponger,  whose  art 
it  is  to  play  upon  the  sympathy  and  credu- 
lity of  the  public  so  successfully  as  to  force  it 
to  supply  his  entire  sustenance.  Such  charac- 
ters are  abnormal  in  their  absence  of  any  sense 
of  individual  responsibility,  and  they  are  ad- 
mittedly the  hardest  class  in  which  to  inculcate 
any  conscience  worthy  of  the  name.  Of  this 
class  Gus  now  became  a  fully  qualified  member. 
In  his  case  there  was  no  hereditary  excuse. 
The  boy  came  of  hard-working  stock,  and  ex- 
ample and  training  ought  to  have  endowed  him 
with  at  least  a  normal  sense  of  industry.  As 
it  was  up  till  the  time  of  his  meeting  with  the 
Salvation  Army  Gus  had  never  felt  any  real 
concern  for  earning  his  living,  for  his  ballooning 
had  been  undertaken  wholly  to  gratify  an  in- 
born   love  of  adventure.     Perhaps  here  was 


THE  BALLOONIST  147 

some  reversion  to  type  generations  old  and 
long  forgotten. 

The  ensuing  months  are  no  credit  to  our 
hero.  Although  but  in  his  early  twenties,  he 
acknowledged  himself  a  "  hobo,"  and  without 
the  least  compunction  lived  upon  others,  beg- 
ging his  way  from  town  to  town,  subsisting  en- 
tirely upon  charity. 

But  freights  and  wayside  bounty  are  alike 
precarious,  and  one  sleety  day  he  tramped  into 
the  capital  city  of  the  state,  having  been  kicked 
off  a  train  fourteen  miles  out.  The  cruel  wind 
discovered  every  rent  in  his  tatters ;  his  shoes 
worn  to  the  uppers  were  no  fortification  against 
the  besieging  slush  of  the  street.  Few  would 
have  recognized  the  young  aeronaut  who  a  few 
months  before  had  held  the  admiring  gaze  of 
thousands.  Now  he  was  a  "  no-account  bum  " 
and  nobody  cared  whether  he  ate  or  starved. 

"Down  on  your  luck?"  The  questioner 
was  shabby  but  clean,  and  Gus  turned  at  once 
to  say  that  luck  and  he  had  long  been  parted. 

"Well,  I  was  in  the  same  fix  three  weeks 
ago.  But  say,  the  Salvation  Army  Industrial 
Home  took  me  in,  straightened  me  out,  and 
here  I  am  holding  down  the  best  job  I've  had 


148  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

for  years.  My  boss  only  pays  every  two  weeks, 
and  I  haven't  any  money  or  I'd  slip  it  to  you. 
But  try  the  Army  people ;  they're  fine  at  fix- 
ing folks." 

Some  one  has  said  that  a  reclaimed  story  be- 
comes uninteresting  after  the  tide  of  reclama- 
tion fairly  sets  in.  We  contest  the  point,  but 
would  remind  any  who  find  it  so  that  it  is  pos- 
sible to  mistake  for  monotony  the  onsweep  of 
the  All-conquering  Grace  of  God  which,  once  it 
gets  thoroughly  to  work  upon  a  character, 
sweeps  all  before  it,  and  rocks  that  might  make 
both  good  "  copy  "  and  shipwreck,  the  life's  craft 
leaves  far  astern.  Again  it  may  be  suggested 
that  the  Salvation  Army  workers  regard  their 
special  genius  of  infinite  pains  with  each  case 
such  an  every -day  affair  that  observers  are  also 
apt  to  call  it  commonplace.  But  this  cannot 
detract  from  the  indelible  achievement  wrought 
upon  the  plastic  clay  of  a  wretched  heart,  nor 
from  the  glory  laid  up  for  the  hand  which  has 
been  pupilled  by  the  great  Eemodeller  of  men. 

In  the  case  of  Gus  the  work  was  neither  done 
in  a  day  nor  easily.  The  young  man  was 
already  old  in  sin  and  shiftlessness.  He  did  not 
like  work — he  had  never  had  a  vocation  save 


THE  BALLOONIST  149 

the  one  which  he  could  never  follow  again. 
There  was  little  ground  upon  which  to  build, 
but  the  Industrial  manager  refused  to  be  dis- 
comforted, and  when  one  string  failed  to  re- 
spond in  the  boy's  long  discordant  nature  he 
tried  another,  and  yet  another.  A  place  to 
sleep  and  food  to  eat  was  given  him,  followed  by 
much  less  welcome  employment.  The  Salva- 
tionists' triumph  began  when  Gus  showed  that 
his  sense  of  responsibility  was  sufficiently  culti- 
vated for  him  to  want  to  work  for  his  living. 
In  between  times  there  were  many  serious 
talks,  and  the  conscience  which  had  promised  to 
sleep  for  a  lifetime  awoke,  and  showed  Gus 
that  while  young  in  years  he  had  come  near 
wasting  his  life  among  "  crooks  and  bums." 
Then  in  one  of  the  meetings  in  which  every- 
thing seemed  pointed  at  him  poor  Gus  knelt  at 
the  mercy  seat,  and  into  his  still  very  dark 
heart  a  shaft  of  light  was  planted  which  has 
only  changed  to  grow  brighter  and  greater. 

More  up-hill  work,  but  with  Gus's  own  soul 
helping  instead  of  acting  as  a  drag  in  his  eleva- 
tion, and  the  manager,  who  had  grown  to  love 
the  young  man  almost  as  a  son  as  he  had  borne 
with  his  shortcomings  as  a  father,  received  his 


150  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

crowning  in  the  boy's  decision  to  enter  the 
Army  ranks  as  an  officer  among  the  "  down  and 
outs." 

But  this  is  all  past  history,  for  although  still 
among  the  young  folk,  Gus  has  put  in  several 
years  of  splendid  officership,  and  has  helped 
many  a  faltering  way-worn  foot  on  the  ladder 
by  which  he  himself  climbed  to  redemption. 
Salvation  has  destroyed  none  of  the  mirth-pro- 
voking powers  which  made  him  a  favourite  in 
his  balloon  days,  but  it  has  discovered  and  de- 
veloped in  him  a  power  which  no  one  thought 
he  possessed — an  enormous  capacity  for  work, 
hard  work  and  plenty  of  it.  He  can  tire  out 
two  men  of  his  size.  The  compassion  which 
lights  his  still  boyish  face  as  he  deals  with  an 
inmate  of  his  Industrial  Home  is  very  attractive. 

"  For,"  says  Gus,  "  I  remember  what  it  was 
that  finally  fetched  me.  In  my  school  days 
there  was  only  one  teacher  that  ever  got  the 
better  of  me  and  she  did  it  by  loving  me,  and 
the  Salvationists  looked  through  the  bad  of  me 
and  found  all  that  might  still  be  good  in  me  the 
same  way  by  loving  me." 

Not  long  since  the  shadow  of  a  tragedy  fell 
across  the  threshold  of  Gus's  happy  home,  now 


THE  BALLOOmST  151 

graced  by  a  sweet  young  wife.  An  old  pal  of 
his  professional  days  was  doing  a  week's  as- 
cents in  the  neighbourhood  and  visiting  Gus. 
The  change  in  his  friend  was  beyond  the  com- 
prehension of  the  man  Karl ;  he  laughed  at 
Gus  "  getting  religion,"  but  through  the  week 
his  respect  manifestly  grew.  His  campaign 
closed  on  Sunday  and  over  the  breakfast  table 
he  said  that  after  this  ascent  he  had  made  up 
his  mind  to  be  through  with  the  business. 
There  was  not  enough  money  in  it  to  make  the 
risk  worth  while  and  he  would  go  up  for  the 
last  time  that  day.  "  Perhaps  I'll  get  a  job  in 
town  and  board  with  you,  Gus,"  he  finished. 

"  Splendid,  old  fellow  ! "  exclaimed  Gus  ; 
"  better  still  if  you  throw  in  your  lot  with  us 
altogether."  The  thought  made  his  morning 
prayer  extra  jubilant,  and  though  the  other  did 
not  join  he  listened  respectfully  to  the  petition 
to  "  keep  us  all  safe." 

"  Gentlemen,  you  are  here  to  entertain  the 
public  by  taking  your  lives  in  your  hands. 
Please  be  careful." 

Only  afterwards  did  the  spectators  remem- 
ber any  special  significance  in  the  announcer's 
words. 


152  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

Karl's  partner  bowed  in  acquiescence  but 
Karl's  answer  was  only  a  smile  of  derision  as 
he  went  up  nonchalantly  holding  the  rope. 
Something  lacking  in  his  appearance  caused  his 
companion  to  call  as  the  two  soared  in  air : 

"Have  you  got  your  wrist  lock  all  right, 
boy?" 

But  Karl  only  shouted  : 

"  So-long,  Tom." 

At  an  altitude  of  two  thousand  feet  Karl 
cut  loose  and  like  a  meteor  he  darted  down- 
ward. The  parachute  opened,  but  owing  to 
the  absence  of  or  improperly  fastened  wrist  lock 
the  force  of  the  man's  weight  broke  his  hold, 
and  he  fell  seven  hundred  feet  to  meet  instant 
and  horrible  death  in  a  cemetery  below. 

The  poor  fellow  had  gone  up  once  too  often 
and  lost  his  last  chance  of  making  a  new  start 
in  life,  and  Captain  Gus's  heart  was  heavy  as 
he  made  arrangements  for  the  humble  funeral. 

"  You  see,"  explained  Gus,  telling  us  the 
story  some  time  after,  "  Karl  had  reached  the 
dangerous  place  where  he  thought  he  could 
dispense  with  safety.  He  liked  to  hear  folks 
say  he  was  a  brave  fellow  and  did  not  need  a 
wrist  lock.     But   every  one   needs  one.     The 


THE  BALLOONIST  153 

wrist  lock  is  the  only  hope  of  an  aeronaut 
when  a  parachute  falls  a  long  distance  before 
opening.  It  is  fastened  to  the  concentrating 
ring  of  a  parachute  where  the  ropes  come  to- 
gether and  keeps  a  fellow's  weight  from  pull- 
ing him  clear  of  the  trapeze  bar  when  the  jolt 
takes  place.  I  guess,  though,"  Gus  went  on 
ruefully,  "  poor  Karl  was  no  more  foolish  with 
his  balloon  than  I  had  been  with  my  life.  I 
knew  the  value  of  the  wrist  lock  in  the  air,  but 
I  thought  I  could  dispense  with  any  safeguard 
for  my  soul." 

"And  what  would  you  call  your  present 
wrist  lock  ?  "  we  asked,  feeling  reasonably  sure 
of  the  answer.     It  came  with  emphasis : 

"Salvation,  and  seeing  that  my  wife,"  the 
twinkle  which  is  never  long  from  his  eyes 
returning  in  full  force,  "  my  wife  and  I  are 
one  and  she  has  got  the  same  thing,  why,  you 
might  about  call  this  wrist  lock  a  padlock, 
eh  I" 


OF  YIKING  STOCK 

Like  the  granite  sarcophagus  rent  by  the  penetrating 

tendril  of  a  flower 

IN  the  warp  and  woof  of  our  cosmopolitan 
tapestry  there  are  no  sturdier  strands  than 
those  which  have  come  from  the  looms  of 
Scandinavia.  Their  heroic  heritage,  stalwart 
physique,  strong  heads  and  stronger  hands 
weave  into  a  citizenship  which  is  an  adorn- 
ment to  the  name.  Yet  these  hardy  characters 
are  only  revealed  at  their  best  by  the  divine 
touch — without  this  even  the  descendants  of 
the  Vikings  may  sink  to  the  gloomy  level  of 
the  commonplace — and  worse.  Thelma  and 
her  Captain  Ester  are  concrete  illustrations  of 
the  abstract  point. 

Thelma  was  cast  for  tragedy  first  on  the 
stage  and  later  for  life.  She  never  spoke  the 
lines  of  an  ingenue  character — hers  were  always 
the  heavy  and  sorrowful,  and  the  tall  express- 
ive figure  and  fine  mobile  face  gave  her  place 

at  once  in  the  profession.     Yet  her  bearing  in 
154 


OF  YIKING  STOCK  155 

private  life  was  anything  but  that  of  a  tragedy- 
queen.  She  was  the  gayest  of  the  particular 
theatrical  Bohemia  in  which  she  moved,  plung- 
ing into  its  license  and  excitement  with  an 
abandon  which  was  the  natural  reaction  from 
the  confinement  and  rigidity  of  her  strict  Lu- 
theran home. 

It  was  one  of  the  horrors  of  nineteenth  cen- 
tury civilization  that  its  most  sheltered  maid- 
enhood was  often  its  most  defenseless ;  once 
outside  the  hedge  of  proprieties  which  had 
enclosed  her  girlhood,  Thelma  had  neither 
course  nor  compass  to  steer  her  undisciplined 
barque  from  the  rocks  of  infamy,  and  her 
shipwreck  was  pitiful  and  swift.  Champagne 
flowed  freely  after  every  performance ;  in  it 
she  di'owned  all  conscience  and  convention  and 
at  last  the  wealth  of  her  womanhood.  To  save 
her  good  name  and  incidentally  his  own,  a 
fellow  actor  offered  her  marriage,  which  the 
disillusioned  and  despairing  girl  accepted  as  the 
only  way  out.  Alas,  she  found  it  a  way  in — 
to  greater  misery.  With  neither  feeling  nor 
professing  any  respect  for  the  other,  what  could 
be  hoped  from  such  a  union  ?  Ten  years  of 
mutual  unhappiness  and  the  man  freed  himself. 


156  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

As  a  divorced  woman  Thelma  found  life  unen- 
durable in  her  native  land ;  her  very  presence 
there  seemed  a  reproach  upon  well-born,  well- 
living  relatives — the  pleasures  of  sin  had  lost 
their  taste  for  a  season.  She  had  not  the 
custody  of  her  own  child,  and  caring  little 
whether  her  voyage  terminated  in  New  York 
or  in  mid-ocean,  she  crossed  the  Atlantic. 

"  The  new  world  and  a  new  life  for  me," 
thought  Thelma  as  they  passed  Sandy  Hook. 
But  she  was  to  learn  how  little  after  all  en- 
vironment can  alter  ego,  and  that  the  same  foes 
to  peace  and  integrity  which  had  been  her 
downfall  in  IN^orway  she  had  brought  with  her 
to  the  United  States. 

Scandinavian  domestics  are  never  at  a  pre- 
mium, and  Thelma  soon  found  a  situation.  But 
the  rough  work  hurt  her  fingers,  accustomed  to 
the  care  of  servants  of  her  own  ;  the  confine- 
ment and  restrictions  fretted  one  who  had  lived 
so  long  in  an  artist's  freedom  and  the  society 
of  her  fellow  menials  was  a  poor  exchange  for 
the  brilliancy  of  the  professional  circle  of  which 
she  had  formed  a  part.  The  nature  which  had 
breathed  in  from  birth  the  strong  clear  airs  of 
the  f  jiords  could  not  bear  the  atmosphere  of  a 


OF  VIKING  STOCK  157 

New  York  basement,  and  in  desperate  loneli- 
ness she  threw  up  her  job. 

Then  the  publication  of  Hansen's  famous  book 
opened  a  new  field  of  employment.  Thelma 
was  a  fluent  talker  and  of  good  appearance,  and 
her  natural  patriotic  enthusiasm  made  her  a  suc- 
cessful book  agent  among  the  Norwegian  dis- 
tricts, as  she  spoke  with  pride  of  the  man  who 
had  carried  the  flag  of  his  country  "  Furthest 
North." 

But  the  very  freedom  of  her  position  was  her 
perU.  Alone  and  still  noticeably  attractive  she 
wandered  through  the  great  city's  "  Little 
Scandinavia,"  and  in  her  canvassing  entered 
one  day  a  gay  hotel.  She  immediately  made  a 
sale,  and  the  proprietor  with  some  flattery 
offered  her  lucrative  work  in  his  restaurant. 
One  of  the  customers,  a  few  days  later,  struck 
by  her  refined  and  respectable  appearance, 
asked  under  his  breath : 

"  Girl,  do  you  know  that  you  are  in  the  worst 
house  in  the  neighbourhood  ?  " 

Thelma  shook  her  head  incredulously.  She 
did  not  believe  him. 

A  week  later  to  the  same  question  she  would 
have  tossed  her  head.     She  had  ceased  to  care. 


158  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

Eight  years  later  into  the  orbit  of  Thelma's 
scarred  life  there  shone  the  star  of  Captain 
Ester's  sweet  face.  Her  bundle  of  Strids  ropets 
on  her  arm  she  passed  unharmed  through  haunts 
which  police  officials  shunned  alone,  and  many 
a  noisy  quarrel  was  stilled  by  her  soft  Swedish 
voice,  and  many  a  prodigal  from  the  father- 
lands was  led  by  her  gentle  hand  into  ways  of 
repentance  and  peace. 

But  upon  one  heart  her  words  seem  to  fall 
like  crystal  drops  upon  a  boulder  of  flint.  Of 
all  the  denizens  of  those  dreary  dives  there  was 
none  who  made  stronger  appeal  upon  the  Sal- 
vationist's compassion.  The  woman  was  the 
most  abandoned  of  her  sex  in  that  locality. 
Dirt  and  dissipation  had  lined  her  face  until 
age  was  indecipherable.  The  horrors  of  her 
life  had  bowed  a  once  splendid  frame  to  a 
twisted  stoop.  Among  the  outcasts  of  that  out- 
cast street  she  was  acknowledged  by  all,  in- 
cluding herself,  to  be  the  lowest  and  the  worst. 
"  Bergen's  Thelma  "  was  a  name  not  for  respect- 
able lips.  Even  the  drunkards  and  harlots  said 
to  Captain  Ester : 

"  Don't  waste  your  time  upon  her.'''' 

But  such  arguments  could  hold  no  meaning 


OF  VIKING  STOCK  159 

for  the  Captain — to  her  there  was  only  one  way 
of  wasting  time,  and  that  was  to  lose  an  op- 
portunity to  bless  or  save,  and  seemingly  upon 
fruitless  ground  she  went  on  planting  her  seeds 
of  love. 

Weeks  went  by  with  no  sign  of  an  impression. 
Months  passed  but  Thelma  showed  no  softening. 
The  end  of  a  year  found  her  only  more  aban- 
doned. But  Captain  Ester's  patience  seemed 
inexhaustible;  many  another  jewel  had  been 
added  to  her  crown  during  the  twelve  months 
but  nothing  superseded  her  interest  in  the 
woman  whom  every  one  regarded — who  re- 
garded herself — as  "hopeless."  Many  times 
Thelma  struggled  to  evade  her,  escaping  down 
a  side  street  if  she  saw  the  Captain  coming  up 
the  avenue.  Sometimes  she  was  openly  hostile 
and  abusive,  more  often  stolidly  indifferent  to 
the  loving  interest  which  she  seemed  powerless 
to  outtire,  but  the  tender  hand  was  still  con- 
tinually upon  her  shoulder  and  the  tender  re^- 
minder  in  her  ear : 

"  Kemember,  Thelma,  God  is  your  friend,  and 
I  want  to  be — it  is  not  too  late  for  you  to  make 
a  new  start,"  or,  "  God  will  forgive  and  we  will 
help  you  to  forget." 


160  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

This  went  on  for  six  years.  Oh,  misquoter 
of  the  verses  "  pearls  before  swine  "  and  "  the 
king's  business  requireth  haste,"  you  who  have 
wanted  to  see  your  seeds  spring  up  overnight, 
and  have  impatiently  forsaken  one  field  for 
another  because  the  harvest  has  tarried,  listen, 
and  learn  from  Captain  Ester's  example 
while  we  repeat  those  words — six  years ! 
Some  hearts  will  never  be  opened  by  dynamic 
force,  yet  like  the  granite  sarcophagus  rent 
by  the  penetrating  tendril  of  a  flower  they 
wait  to  respond  to  the  persistency  of  gentler 
means. 

Then  one  day  in  a  filthy  gingham  dress,  her 
tangled  hair  hanging  round  her  shoulders, 
Thelma  came  to  Captain  Ester  sobbing  bitterly, 
telling  her  she  wanted  to  be  good.  Hoping, 
praying  that  the  tune  long  worked  for  and 
wanted  had  come  at  last,  the  Captain  took  her 
to  her  own  home,  and  with  the  fine  practicality 
which  is  one  of  her  strongest  characteristics 
made  a  cup  of  strong  coffee  and  set  food  before 
her  long-anticipated  guest.  For  two  hours  the 
two  knelt  together.  Out  of  the  wreckage  of 
herself  poor  Thelma's  soul  at  last  found  voice, 
crying : 


OF  VIKING  STOCK  161 

"  Oh,  if  you  have  troubled  so  much  and  so 
long,  God  must  love  me." 

Then  she  put  her  much  battered  sin-spent 
self  into  Divine  Hands  and  a  new  life  began. 
But  the  fight  was  not  all  over ;  the  forces  of 
evil  abroad  all  the  time  in  war  against  the 
forces  of  Divinity  swooped  down  upon  her, 
and  for  two  days  Thelma  went  through  a 
mental  and  spiritual  combat  which  left  her 
weak  and  faint — but  a  conqueror.  During 
forty-eight  hours  she  never  closed  her  eyes  in 
sleep — she  said  : 

"  I  was  so  afraid  of  losing  God  again." 

Then  with  a  shining  smile  upon  her  thin, 
ravaged  face  Thelma  told  her  Captain  that  all 
was  well.  For  weeks  her  rejoicing  saviour 
watched  over  her  like  a  mother,  building  up 
her  strength  with  nourishing  food,  keeping  her 
heart  and  mind  occupied  with  easy  tasks,  and 
literally  loving  her  back  to  her  womanhood 
again  as  only  a  soul  steeped  in  Calvary  passion 
can  do  it.  For  weeks  she  did  not  let  her  con- 
vert walk  down  the  notorious  street  upon 
which  she  herself  had  been  the  most  notorious. 
Then  one  day  on  an  errand  which  necessitated 
a  short  cut  Thehna  found  herself  before  she 


162  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEIT 

knew  upon  the  forbidden  ground.  When  she 
reax3hed  home  out  of  breath,  with  eyes  dancing, 
she  cried : 

"  Oh,  Captain,  I've  just  been  down  the  old 
avenue.  But  I  hardly  recognized  it— it  looks 
like  a  new  street ;  it's  all  so  changed." 

It  took  the  Captain  some  time  to  prove  to 
her  protegee  that  the  change  was  in  herself. 

Four  years  of  salvation  have  lifted  from 
Thelma's  appearance  many  years.  A  middle- 
aged  woman  in  actuality,  an  old  woman  in  feel- 
ing and  appearance,  religion  has  almost  made 
her  a  girl  again.  She  lost  fourteen  years  in 
sin  but  already  her  friends  say  she  looks  as  if 
fifteen  have  been  given  back  to  her.  Her 
figure  has  straightened,  her  face  smoothed  out 
and  her  eyes  regained  their  brightness.  Hard, 
honest  toil  makes  her  doubly  appreciate  the 
cozy  little  flat  which  her  earnings  can  now 
aflFord  and  in  which  Thelma  loves  sometimes  to 
play  her  new  and  delightful  part  as  lady  boun- 
tiful. She  has  all  the  Scandinavian's  venera- 
tion for  the  feast  of  Noel,  and  although  in  her 
degraded  years  the  season  had  passed  without 
any  celebration,  as  soon  as  religion  trans- 
formed her  she  set  about  honouring  the  Birth- 


OF  VIKING  STOCK  163 

day.  The  festivities  of  her  comrades  were  not 
suflBcient ;  she  wanted  to  make  her  gift  to  the 
Christ  child  something  more  personal.  So 
around  a  little  Christmas  tree  of  her  own  she 
gathered  half  a  dozen  destitute  babies,  and  sent 
them  away  warmed  without  as  well  as  within, 
clothed  in  new  garments  which  she  had  sat  up 
many  nights  to  sew  for  them. 

But  her  hardest,  happiest  work  is  put  in 
at  the  Army  meetings,  where  her  still  un- 
quenched  dramatic  powers,  and  her  well- 
known  reputations,  both  old  and  new,  make 
her  words  of  invaluable  service  and  blessing. 
Conversion  has  brought  out  all  the  latent 
vitality  of  her  Yiking  stock,  and  out  of  the 
ashes  of  her  miserable  past  her  splendid 
intellect  and  strong  soul  has  risen  to  crown 
the  work  which  discovered  and  saved  her. 

The  other  day  when  selling  War  Cries  she 
felt  herself  followed.  Thelma  is  of  stalwart 
proportions  and  amazon  courage  and  turned  to 
face  the  man  who  slunk  back,  evidently  satisfied 
when  her  face  was  disclosed  beneath  its  poke 
bonnet. 

"  Why,  it  is— it  can't  be "  he  stammered. 

"  Forgive  me,  miss,  but  I  took  you  for  Bergen's 


164  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

Thelma.  There  is  such  a  likeness  yet  such  a 
difference." 

Writing  for  the  first  time  in  fifteen  years  to 
her  brother  who  is  a  doctor  in  E^orway  she  said : 

"I  am  Thelma,  your  sister,  she  which  was 
dead,  but  is  alive  again." 

The  Devil  sneered  on  a  field  of  time  as  he 

scanned  its  wan  waste  over  ; 
'Tis  winter  already  for  souls,  he  said,  which 
have  spent  their  all  for  what  is  not 
bread. 
For  Hope  she  is  dead 
And  Chance  it  has  fled 
From  the  years  that  the  locust  hath  eaten. 

The  Saviour  smiled  on  a  field  of  time  as  He 

looked  its  new  life  over, 
On  the  miracle  spring  had  worked  again, 
the  stripped  tree  bore  buds  and  the 
shorn  earth  grain. 
For  I  will  restore 
To  the  soul  and  more 
Than  the  years  that  the  locust  hath  eaten. 


XI 

THE  MISFIT 

"  Broncho  buster^  dog  fancier ^  gentleman  rancher^  has 
religion  lassoed  you  at  last  ?  " 

THE  eye  of  dawn  is  pitifully  realistic. 
Tiirough  sunset  glow  we  look  often 
with  glamour  upon  a  renovated  world 
— defects  hidden  by  the  lengthening  shadows, 
beauties  brought  out  and  intensified  by  the 
pigments  of  natui'e's  greatest  colour  artist. 
But  with  the  day's  awakening  comes  disillu- 
sionment and  we  see  things  as  they  are.  Thus 
the  new  light  mercilessly  searched  the  Floridian 
scene  for  flaw  and  failure,  and  found  both. 
The  festoons  of  Spanish  moss  appeared  like 
funereal  drapings  on  trees  where  their  parasitic 
ravages  were  already  showing.  The  orange 
grove  at  dusk  would  have  seemed  fit  setting  for 
any  Southern  idyl,  but  now  between  its  leaves 
there  showed  the  small  stunted  balls  hard  as 
marbles,  bitter,  useless  legacy  of  that  rare 
tropical  tragedy — frost.  As  a  subject  for  a 
165 


166  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

painting  the  old  log  cabin  might  have  invited 
the  artist  to  set  up  his  easel,  but  as  a  habitation 
for  man  its  almost  ruin  was  appalling. 

But  the  picture  was  not  one  exclusively  of 
still  life,  for  up  from  the  region  of  the  little 
stream  came  a  sound  of  lapping.  There,  bend- 
ing over  the  same  low  trough,  a  man  and  a  dog 
where  slaking  their  thirst  together.  The  dog 
finished  first  and  frisked  about  his  prone 
master,  short  barks  expressing  surprise  at  his 
awkwardness  over  an  accomplishment  in  which 
he  himself  had  been  proficient  since  puppy 
days.  But  this  was  only  one  of  many  mysteries 
beyond  the  understanding  of  Snapper — why  his 
master  should  have  taken  to  walking  on  four 
feet  like  himself,  why  any  stick  he  brought  was 
no  longer  thrown  for  him  but  eagerly  snatched 
for  the  fire,  why  from  meat  scraps  and  occa- 
sional bones  the  food  of  both  had  descended  to 
an  unrelieved  oatmeal  diet  most  palling  to  the 
canine  palate — these  were  weightier  problems. 

At  last  the  man  lifted  his  face  ;  its  contour 
was  classic  despite  shaggy  locks  and  unshaven 
beard,  but  tragic  with  its  look  of  failure.  Pull- 
ing two  sticks  to  his  elbows  he  commenced  his 
painful  return  to  the  cabin  ;  so  crippled  he  was 


THE  MISFIT  167 

and  so  inadequate  his  crutches  that  the  journey 
was  made  almost  upon  his  hands  and  knees, 
Snapper  meanwhile  running  to  and  fro,  and 
covering  a  dozen  times  the  distance.  "With  a 
groan  the  man  threw  himself  down  upon  the 
cabin  floor,  too  weak  to  reach  the  wretched 
makeshift  which  served  him  as  couch ;  the  near- 
est neighbours  fifty  miles  away,  he  thought 
himself  dying,  and  as  the  little  fox  terrier 
licked  his  face  he  moaned : 

"  Poor,  faithful  little  Snapper !  If  your 
master  goes  you  will  be  better  off ;  you  are  only 
tied  to  a  failure." 

"  He  has  failed,   he  has  failed,   he  has 
missed  his  chance. 
He  has  just  done  things  by  half; 
Life's  been  a  jolly  good  joke  on  him 

And  now  is  the  time  to  laugh. 
Ha,  ha  !  he  is  one  of  the  legion  lost ; 

He  was  never  meant  to  win  ; 
He's  a  rolling  stone  and  it's  bred  in  the 
bone, 
He's  a  man  who  won't  fit  in." 

Years  later  Eobert  W.  Service  was  to  write 
these  lines,  but  he  could  never  have  found  a  fit- 
ter subject  for  them  than  the  man  who  that 


168  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

night  lay  friendless  and  hopeless  on  his  blighted 
orange  ranch.  All  Dane's  fate  and  failure 
might  be  expressed  in  those  words — he  was  a 
misfit. 

Singularity  more  often  than  sin  is  the  stone 
which  starts  the  avalanche  of  such  men's  careers. 
Dane  had  been  the  one  odd  member  of  a  par- 
ticularly even  family.  For  generations  his  race 
had  run  in  a  groove — a  groove  of  talent,  wealth 
and  distinction,  but  a  groove  none  the  less. 
Each  youth  had  gone  to  college  primed  with  a 
sense  of  his  responsibility  to  sustain  the  honour 
of  his  blood  ;  each  had  returned  with  fresh 
laurels  to  adorn  the  name  of  his  forefathers — 
except  Dane.  He  baulked.  Within  a  few  days 
of  his  graduation  he  ran  away — to  his  parents' 
everlasting  hum  illation.  The  son  who  preferred 
tools  to  books  and  whose  nature-loving  soul 
pined  in  the  class  room  confinement  was  to  re- 
main their  hopeless  conundrum. 

"  Son,"  demanded  his  proud  old  father,  "  do 
you  forget  that  your  grandfather  tutored 
princes  ?  " 

"Poor  grandfather!"  To  the  older  man 
such  effrontery  was  equal  to  lese-majestie. 
"  Father,  I'd  like  to  please  you  if  I  could,  but  to 


THE  MISFIT  169 

wear  a  stiff  coUar  all  the  time  and  hold  a  book 
to  my  nose — it  stifles  me." 

"  Then,"  said  the  mortified  parent,  "  there  is 
nothing  left  you  but  the  navy  yard."  For  to 
the  aristocratic  old  mind  the  disgrace  of  manual 
labour  seemed  less  if  associated  with  govern- 
ment service. 

But  the  boy  was  still  a  misfit.  His  dreamy, 
sensitive  spirit  shrank  at  first  from  the  coarse 
companions  of  his  new  environment.  They  on 
their  part,  with  the  instinctive  resentment  of 
labour  against  the  intrusion  of  leisure,  deter- 
mined to  make  the  young  gentleman  one  of 
themselves.  They  succeeded  so  well  that  at 
the  end  of  the  first  of  his  five  years'  apprentice- 
ship, Dane  could  drink  with  any  of  them, 
while  his  proficiency  in  the  art  of  torpedo 
manufacture  was  soon  outstripped  by  his  pro- 
ficiency in  every  sort  of  obscene  profanity. 
Yet  he  was  an  incongruous  figure ;  he  imbibed 
the  worst  of  his  surroundings  yet  himself  re- 
mained a  foreign  and  solitary  element. 

He  did  not  fit  in  at  his  next,  a  government 
appointment.  Dissipation  had  already  begun 
to  vitiate  his  brain  powers.  The  authorities 
were  glad  to  have  his  illustrious  name  on  their 


170  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

pay  roll,  but  were  surprised  at  the  irregularity 
of  his  work. 

He  did  not  fit  in  at  home.  His  brothers  and 
sisters  were  ready  of  speech ;  he  was  temper- 
amentally quiet  and  slow.  Amid  their  warm 
demonstrations,  his  dumb  adoration  of  his 
mother  was  misunderstood  and  discredited. 
When  at  midnight  she  met  him  with  a  low- 
spoken,  "  My  boy,"  his  heart  nearly  burst  with 
repentant  love,  but  his  father's  harsh,  "  Have 
you  no  apology  to  offer,  young  hound  ?  "  con- 
gealed the  rising  emotion. 

He  became  a  misfit  even  in  the  circle  of  his 
carousing  companions  who,  glorying  in  his  ex- 
tremes of  dissipation,  were  yet  repelled  by  his 
strange  moods  of  morosity. 

Then  he  became  painfully  conscious  that  he 
was  a  misfit  in  society.  For  some  years  he 
lived  a  double  Ufe.  In  faultless  evening  dress 
he  began  many  an  evening  among  wealth  and 
culture,  ending  such  over  and  over  again  in 
coarse  garb  and  coarser  debauchery  ;  then  home 
to  spend  what  remained  of  the  night  in  futile 
tears,  disgusted  with  himself  in  either  role. 
But  the  time  came  when  invitations  grew  less, 
family  acquaintances  dropped  his  name  from 


THE  MISFIT  171 

their  lists  and  he  was  suspiciously  shunned  by 
parents  with  marriageable  daughters.  At  last 
came  the  family  complaint  or  rather  command : 

"  You  are  only  a  disgrace  to  us  here.  Go 
and  pull  yourself  together  in  America." 

So  to  the  country  which  craves  and  gives 
itself  to  the  strong  there  was  added  another 
incompetent.  When  will  the  old  world  wake 
to  the  truth  that  this  mighty  land  of  magnifi- 
cent distances,  buried  treasure,  nature's  pleni- 
tude and  opportunity's  storehouse,  demands  the 
best  ?  Has  she  not  had  evidence  sufficient  in 
the  failures  whom  she  has  sent  here  to  sepul- 
chre, whitening  bones  on  the  path  of  progress 
telling  of  weaklings  whom  this  strong  land  has 
turned  to  rend.  But  for  the  intervention  of 
that  Divinity  whose  miraculous  effect  upon  the 
lives  of  men  these  pages  portray  Dane  would 
have  been  numbered  among  these  victims. 

On  this  side  the  Atlantic  the  man  seemed  no 
better  able  to  find  his  place.  He  essayed  an 
atheistic  set  where  for  the  first  time  he  openly 
cut  loose  from  the  faith  of  his  fathers,  saying 
with  a  laugh : 

"  The  devil's  good  enough  for  me." 

Yet  he  felt  himself  uncomfortably  out  of  his 


172  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

element,  and  his  associates  were  quick  to  feel 
this.  One  night  after  Dane  had  loudly  debated 
the  non-existence  of  a  Divine  Being  a  com- 
panion said  to  him : 

"  What  a  liar  you  are ! " 

"  The  same  to  you,"  Dane  responded.  "  Do 
any  of  us  really  disbelieve  ?  " 

And  because  there  is  nothing  more  tortuous 
than  the  heart's  involuntary  belief  to  which 
the  lip  gives  the  lie,  he  was  more  than  ever  a 
miserable  man. 

Money  and  friends  timed  their  disappear- 
ance with  the  usual  precision,  and  for  the  first 
time  Dane's  well-stocked  memory  of  the 
classics  recalled  with  personal  application  the 
famous  soliloquy  of  the  ill-starred  prince  of 
Denmark.  Many  times  he  asked  himself,  "  To 
be  or  not  to  be."  For  months  he  and  a 
friendly  druggist  held  a  suicide  pact  in  abey- 
ance, the  latter  manufacturing  deadly  pellets, 
a  supply  of  which  was  carried  by  each.  But 
though  its  undulations  are  fitful,  the  pendulum 
of  a  misfit's  life  swings  long,  and  ere  either 
could  summon  up  sufficient  courage  to  take  the 
last  dose  the  "Western  fever  had  fired  Dane's 
blood,  and  soon  he  was  finding  life  worth  living 


THE  MISFIT  173 

again  on  the  back  of  a  broncho.  Horse-break- 
ing is  peculiarly  alien  to  meditation — such  men 
may  commit  suicide  but  rarely  premeditate  it, 
for  the  very  wine  of  earthly  existence  passes 
the  lips  of  such  outdoor  life,  and  who  would 
want  to  throw  such  a  cup  away — who  but  a 
misfit ! 

Before  long  Dane  was  again  restless  and 
he  forsook  the  stock  ranch  to  become  a  dog 
breeder  in  Chicago.  Love  of  animals  was  one 
of  the  few  steady  passions  of  his  fluctuating 
nature  and  he  became  inordinately  proud  of 
his  fox  terriers.  Here  he  might  have  found 
a  fixed  if  not  a  fine  life's  occupation,  had  not 
the  nemesis  of  ill-health  pursued  him  out  of  it. 
Gathering  up  the  last  of  his  funds  and  taking 
one  favourite  dog  he  bought  a  small  orange 
ranch  in  Florida  as  a  last  hope  for  health  and 
livelihood.  But  he  had  had  no  experience  in 
agriculture ;  he  loved  but  did  not  understand 
nature's  varying  moods.  The  barometer  of  his 
prospects  sank  lower  and  lower;  frost  came 
and  it  dropped  to  zero.  Crippled  with  rheu- 
matism, a  dwindling  oatmeal  barrel  his  only 
sustenance,  forsaken  by  his  friends,  without  a 
hope  or  help  in  the  world,  on  the  night  when 


174  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

this  story  opens  the  man  believed  himself  at 
the  point  of  death. 

But  Dane  did  not  die  and  there  were  even 
darker  times  to  come — days  when  again  the 
thought  of  suicide  took  possession  of  him,  when 
he  sat  for  hours,  his  gaze  fascinated  by  the 
clothes-line  left  hanging  by  the  old  negro  house- 
keeper of  his  more  prosperous  days — nights 
when  he  lay  with  fixed  eyes  watching  the  moon- 
light creeping  up  the  wall  till  it  illumined  the 
muzzle  of  his  gun — the  only  weapon  left  out  of 
a  fine  collection.  The  darkest  hour  of  all 
came  when  he  resolved  upon  the  death  of 
Snapper. 

The  tie  which  binds  a  lonely  man  and  his  dog 
together  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  and 
attractive  of  life's  phenomena.  Yery  often  in 
the  man  it  is  the  only  evidence  of  humane 
feeling,  while  in  the  dog  it  brings  out  the  pecul- 
iar capacities  of  canine  companionship  which 
have  earned  him  the  name  of  "  man's  best 
friend."  The  bond  between  dog  and  master  in 
this  case  was  a  very  close  one.  Snapper  was 
the  sole  descendant  of  the  prize  "  Peggy,"  who 
had  been  killed  by  a  rattler  soon  after  her  flight 
south.     Then  Snapper  had  entered  into  every 


THE  MISFIT  175 

pleasure,  pursuit  and  privation  with  Dane  upon 
the  doomed  ranch.  The  cat  had  hunted  and 
fished  on  her  own  account,  but  Snapper  had 
always  brought  his  prey  to  his  master.  He 
learned  to  fetch  hat,  stick  and  other  articles  by 
name,  and  withal  proved  himself  an  indispen- 
sable companion,  becoming,  as  is  so  often  the 
case,  the  more  intelligent  and  adept  as  his 
master  became  more  enfeebled  and  crippled. 
But  the  oatmeal  was  nearly  spent  in  the  barrel, 
and  Dane  resolved  that  at  least  two  should  not 
die  of  starvation.  He  made  up  his  mind  to 
shoot  the  dog  in  his  sleep,  but  Snapper  seemed 
to  dream  with  one  eye  open  and  it  became  im- 
possible to  catch  him  napping.  Then  Dane  set 
his  teeth  to  the  task  of  despatching  his  friend 
awake.  Snapper  and  the  gun  had  always  been 
the  best  of  friends ;  its  removal  from  the  wall 
had  sent  him  into  a  frenzy  of  glee  in  anticipa- 
tion of  a  hunting  expedition  ;  but  now  the  dog 
took  a  sudden  and  unaccountable  dislike  to  it. 
He  growled  when  Dane  took  the  weapon  in  his 
hand,  showed  his  teeth  and  ran  off  to  hide  with 
tail  down  and  ears  cocked  in  nervous  fright. 
It  was  as  if  in  some  subconscious  way  he  dis- 
cerned his  master's  purpose,  for  Snapper  refused 


176  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

to  come  within  or  near  the  cabin  while  the  gun 
was  in  evidence.  At  last  Dane  flung  it  from 
him  and  whistled.  Snapper  paused  on  the 
threshold  with  one  foot  lifted  ready  for  flight, 
then  seeing  the  gun  lying  in  a  corner  he  rushed 
to  his  master  and  commenced  a  demonstration 
of  affection  both  noisy  and  vehement.  He 
seemed  to  thank  Dane  for  sparing  his  life,  and 
soon  big  salt  tears  were  being  licked  away  by 
Snapper's  long,  loving  tongue. 

"  All  right,  old  boy.  "We'll  stick  it  out  to- 
gether till  we  drop.     It  can't  be  long." 

Dane's  mind  was  now  apathetic  with  fatalism. 
He  thought  he  would  crawl  to  his  gate,  turn 
three  times  and  go  as  far  as  he  could  in  what- 
ever direction  his  nose  pointed,  whether  to  life 
or  death  he  seemed  to  have  ceased  to  care  un- 
less for  faithful  Snapper's  sake.  He  reached 
the  gate  but  before  turning  he  stood  amazed. 
For  the  first  time  for  months  a  man  approached 
the  ranch.  The  visitor  proved  to  be  a  friend 
who  had  deserted  Dane  when  the  crash  came, 
now  returning  to  see  if  there  was  anything  to 
be  made  on  the  estate  for  himself.  With  him 
came  money  and  food,  and  both  man  and  dog 
were  slowly  put  into  some  sort  of  condition 


THE  MISFIT  177 

again.  But  he  also  brought  a  lot  of  profanity 
and  profane  literature,  some  of  which  he  pro- 
ceeded to  unpack  at  once. 

"Thought  I  might  want  something  to  keep 
the  blue  devils  off  in  the  swamps  and  picked 
them  all  up  cheap,"  he  said,  fingering  lovingly 
literature  which  ought  to  have  been  burned  in 
the  making.  "  Hello  !  What's  this  rum  'un  ? 
Something  in  your  line,  Dane,"  and  he  threw 
across  a  small,  disfigured  volume.  It  was  a 
copy  of  the  New  Testament  in  Danish  and  it 
opened  at  the  fourteenth  chapter  of  St.  John. 
In  the  tongue  of  his  nativity  the  poor  misfit 
read: 

"  Let  not  your  heart  be  troubled  ;  ye  believe 
in  God,  believe  also  in  Me.  In  My  Father's 
house  are  many  mansions." 

The  strongest  emotion  his  heart  had  ever 
known  filled  it  to  overflowing — a  homesickness 
unutterable.  Derisive  laughter  burst  from  the 
visitor. 

"  What,  Dane,  broncho  buster,  dog  fancier, 
gentleman  rancher,  has  religion  lassoed  you  at 
last?  Eeligion  of  my  bringing,  too — what  a 
joke ! " 

"  There's  little  of  my  life  left  worth  mending 


178  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

to  God  or  man."  Hope  and  despair  struggled 
together  in  Dane's  tones. 

"  Well,  old  man,"  said  the  other  finding  in- 
spiration and  increased  loquacity  in  his  pocket 
flask,  "  I  set  no  stock  in  religion,  as  you  know, 
but  if  I  ever  did,  the  Salvation  Army  would 
about  fill  the  bill  for  me.  They  are  the 
darndest,  helpfullest  lot  in  the  world." 

Strange  message,  stranger  messenger,  but 
that  night  the  wanderer  turned  his  face 
towards  Home  as  he  knelt  in  the  moonlight, 
repeating  with  much  hesitancy  the  old  long 
forgotten  prayer,  "Our  Father  which  art  in 
heaven." 

He  resolved  to  make  the  pilgrimage  to  New 
York  and  to  the  Salvation  Army.  The  one 
sacrifice  was  Snapper,  and  the  man's  heart 
ached  as  he  left  his  faithful  friend  in  the  good 
home  found  for  him.  By  slow  and  painful 
stages  the  journey  was  made,  alas,  not  without 
dark  interruptions,  for  the  poor  misfit  fell 
among  soul  thieves  en  route  who  tempted  him 
into  old  ways.  But  the  purpose  of  his  journey 
never  left  him,  and  one  day,  very  battered  in 
appearance,  penniless  in  pocket  and  physically 
much  the  worse  for  wear,  he  landed  in  New 


THE  MISFIT  179 

York.  His  only  possession  was  a  doll  bought 
in  some  foolish  moment  on  the  journey  north. 
Between  the  depot  and  the  Salvation  Army 
Headquarters  the  doll  went  for  drink,  and 
Dane  reached  his  goal  absolutely  at  the  end 
of  all  resources.  He  asked  for  work  and 
salvation  in  the  same  breath,  and  was  at  once 
despatched  to  the  manager  of  an  Industrial 
Home  where  men's  desires  and  intentions  are 
as  often  sorted  out  and  made  fit  as  the  waste 
material  by  means  of  which  their  worthless 
lives  are  reclaimed.  Surely  the  Divine  alche- 
mist is  at  work  in  these  hives  of  industry, 
beautifully  symbolizing  their  system  of  collect- 
ing, sorting  and  reclaiming  the  refuse  of  the 
city  by  refuse  manhood  returning  to  worth 
and  beauty.  Experts  tell  us  of  wonderful 
vessels  which  have  been  fashioned  from  the 
scrap  heap  of  a  coal  mine,  beautiful  enough  to 
adorn  a  royal  palace ;  so  divine  and  human 
compassion  working  here  together  have  found 
in  humanity's  scrap  heap  those  which  have  been 
transformed  to  priceless  loveliness.  Dane  was 
one  of  these  treasures  discovered  in  darkness. 
"Take  two  hours'  sleep.  You'll  work 
better    for  rest."     The  kindly  tone  as  well 


180  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

as  the  humane  thoughtfulness  of  the  Industrial 
manager's  first  words  quickened  gratitude  in 
the  heart  of  the  hopeless  derelict. 

Rest?  Every  aching  bone  in  Dane's  body- 
cried  out  for  it.  Rest  ?  The  tiredness  of  a 
lifetime  was  in  his  heart. 

The  night  after  in  a  little  meeting  conducted 
by  his  new  and  good  friends  he  found  rest. 
Sweeter  than  any  music  to  which  he  had 
listened  in  the  famous  concert  halls  of  Europe 
sounded  the  simple  hymns  with  their  reitera- 
tion of  the  invitation,  "  Come."  To  Dane  the 
word  and  the  spmt  that  unctionized  it  was 
irresistible. 

The  visible  effect  of  conversion  in  this  case 
was  the  adaptability  with  which  it  endowed 
the  man's  nature.  He  who  had  been  a  misfit 
in  twenty  different  trades  now  showed  not  only 
capacity  but  continuity  as  he  thankfully  began 
to  work  his  way  up  from  the  lowest  place 
among  the  paper-sorters.  His  contentment 
was  noticeable  by  all.  Those  who  had  known 
him  in  the  old  morose  days  would  not  have 
recognized  the  geniality  of  his  present  disposi. 
tion  ;  they  would  have  been  still  slower  to  un- 
derstand that  he  drew  its  source  from  the  time 


THE  MISFIT  181 

spent  in  a  big  packing  case  in  which  he  hid 
many  times  a  day  for  a  quiet  few  minutes'  com- 
munion with  his  God.  As  the  years  rolled  on, 
the  scholarly  mind  and  wide  experience  found 
a  more  responsible  niche  of  service.  Among 
his  comrades  he  was  both  loved  and  honoured ; 
outside  business  men  with  whom  his  work 
brought  him  into  contact  respected  and  ap- 
preciated him,  but  there  was  always  something 
pathetic  about  the  humble  little  man.  He 
liked  best  to  sign  himself  "  a  poor  and  simple 
Hallelujah  gentleman." 

Ten  years  after  his  rehabilitation  sudden 
sickness  came  upon  him,  and  with  little  warn- 
ing the  other  world  beckoned  and  claimed  him. 
Among  the  many  tears  shed  at  his  grave  there 
fell  the  big  drops  of  children's  eyes.  His  yearn- 
ing over  children  was  wonderful  to  witness  and 
many  comrades  welcomed  the  solitary  man 
among  their  little  flocks.  In  the  Bible  of  one 
of  his  small  friends  he  wrote  a  few  days  before 
his  death : 

"  You  may  not  now  find  so  much  comfort  in 
reading  this  Holy  Book.  But  in  coming  years, 
when  the  days,  perhaps,  are  not  quite  so  sun- 
shiny and  friends  are  gone  away,  I  pray  that 


182  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

you  may  find  here  what  I  have  found :  con- 
solation and  comfort,  hope  and  peace.  Trust 
all  things  to  Jesus  forever  and  we  too  shall 
meet  again  in  the  many  mansions  of  which  He 
has  spoken,"  and  he  quoted  the  promise  re- 
corded by  St.  John  which  had  led  him  to  seek 
the  Army  and  the  Army's  God. 

The  message  to  this  little  girl  was  his  last. 
When  the  end  came,  pain  paralyzed  his  utter- 
ance. But  those  who  looked  upon  his  still  face 
needed  no  dying  words  to  explain  the  speaking 
peace  that  beautified  it.  On  his  casket  they 
placed  the  little  Danish  Testament  with  the 
marked  verse  in  the  fourth  Gospel. 

In  the  many  mansions  of  the  Father's  House 
Dane  is  a  misfit  no  longer. 


XII 
X0923 

Under  the  paralyzing  sense  of  disgrace^  the  pulse  of 
his  manhood  beat  slow 

AG  AUNT  delegation  met  the  young  min- 
ister at  the  depot,  and  escorted  him  to 
the  small  mountain  home  where  he 
was  to  take  his  first  supper.  Here  a  hollow- 
cheeked  woman  gave  him  welcome  and  several 
distressingly  thin  youngsters  peeped  with  awe 
at  the  new  great  man  of  their  small  world. 
While  his  hostess  was  busy  in  the  adjoining 
shed,  a  dog  showing  all  his  bones  pushed  a 
soft,  appealing  nose  into  the  visitor's  hand. 

"What  a  lean  kind  you  all  are  here,  old  boy," 
said  the  young  man.  "Well,  I  guess  this  is 
left  for  you,  so  begin  to  fill  up  upon  it,"  and 
he  pushed  within  the  animal's  reach  a  plate  of 
what  appeared  to  be  scraps  standing  on  the 
bare  kitchen  table.  When  the  woman  returned 
her  eyes  immediately  took  in  the  empty  plate, 
and  with  dropped  jaw  she  demanded : 

"  Where  did  the  meat  go  ?  " 
183 


184  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

"  The  dog  ate  it,"  said  her  guest. 

The  shock  of  a  real  domestic  catastrophe 
vetoed  all  power  to  suppress  the  humiliating 
fact,  as  she  exclaimed  tragically : 

"  It  was  your  supper — all  I  had." 

The  hospitality  and  poverty  of  these  Southern 
mountain  folk  is  alike  proverbial.  As  their 
minister,  Martin  had  ample  opportunity  to  test 
both.  With  a  hundred  miles'  circuit  to  cover, 
without  any  adjunct  to  his  original  means  of 
locomotion,  with  a  microscopic  salary  eked  out 
by  cabbages,  salt  pork  and  other  donations  "  in 
kind,"  with  a  blacksmith  shop  for  a  place  of 
worship  and  an  unfinished  loft,  reached  by  a 
ladder,  as  his  sleeping  place,  the  drifting  snow 
supplementing  his  scanty  coverings  with  an 
extra  quilt  of  ice,  the  outlook  was  lugubrious. 

But  before  the  authorities  had  found  him  out 
and  sent  him  home  as  the  runaway  minor  son 
of  a  widow,  Martin  had  been  known  as  the 
mascot  of  the  regiment,  and  the  spirit  which 
had  kept  the  boy's  lips  stiff  amid  the  horrors 
of  those  two  years  at  the  front  gave  the  man 
nerve  to  stick  to  his  post,  and  so  far  as  energy, 
business  ability  and  push  could  fill  the  require- 
ments of  his  pastorate  Martin  was  not  found 


X0923  185 

wanting.  But — it  was  a  long  but — the  man 
acknowledged  to  himself  that  he  had  never 
experienced  a  change  of  heart ;  sometimes  he 
felt  himself  a  "sky  pilot"  sailing  under  false 
colours  and  unworthy  of  the  name  he  bore ; 
therefore  when  a  sudden  wind  of  fortune  found 
him  out,  there  was  little  to  hold  him  to  the 
ministry. 

"  Martin,  I  guess  you've  struck  luck,"  said  an 
acquaintance  one  day.  "  They  are  advertising 
for  you  up  North  as  the  lost  heir." 

The  supposition  proved  correct,  and  in  a  few 
weeks'  time,  his  clerical  garb  doffed  forever, 
Martin  was  hard  at  it,  doubling  the  small  for- 
tune left  to  him.  It  takes  originality  to  mint 
money  in  Washington.  Martin's  method  was 
shrewd  and  successful.  Every  four  years  he 
raked  in  thousands,  and  could  well  afford  to 
mark  time  in  his  real  estate  business  between 
whiles.  Long  before  the  inauguration  cere- 
monies he  had  bought  up  all  available  rooming 
space  which  he  rented  easily  for  double  and 
treble  the  price  later,  the  ability  with  which  he 
cornered  the  market  equalled  by  the  cleverness 
with  which  he  preserved  the  renter's  incognito. 

But  as  Martin  hunself  has  said,  "  There  is  no 


186  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

security  for  the  best  business  head  which  leaves 
God  out  of  its  calculations,"  and  at  the  high 
tide  of  his  prosperity  there  befell  him  both 
social  and  commercial  shipwreck. 

One  of  the  idiosyncrasies  of  sin  is  its  frequent 
choice  to  overthrow  a  man's  footing  at  what 
he  feels  his  strongest  rather  than  his  weakest 
point;  and  thus  we  find  this  man  who  had 
prided  himself  upon  what  he  called  his  high 
moral  code  apprehended  by  the  law  for  im- 
morality— the  specific  charge  being  the  viola- 
tion of  the  postal  laws.  All  that  made  life 
worth  Living  to  Martin  was  at  stake,  and  he 
had  no  scruple  in  pleading  "  not  guilty."  The 
prisoner's  bank  account  was  heavily  mortgaged 
to  provide  a  clever  lawyer  to  get  him  off,  and 
with  only  circumstantial  evidence  the  case  was 
about  to  be  dismissed,  when  the  sudden  advent 
of  a  handwriting  expert  in  court  affirmed  the 
criminal  anonymous  letter  to  be  in  Martin's 
hand.  The  penalty  was  ten  years,  and  although 
owing  to  his  previous  character  it  was  in  his 
case  considerably  diminished,  the  convicted 
man  felt  that  so  indelible  would  be  his  brand- 
ing that  it  might  almost  as  well  have  been  a 
sentence  for  life. 


X0923  187 

The  exchange  of  a  name  for  a  number  has  a 
peculiarly  demoralizing  effect  upon  most  men. 
It  stupifies  individuality  without  which  a  sense 
of  responsibility  is  impossible,  and  this  loss  is  as 
much  accountable  for  the  after  delinquencies  of 
men  who  have  "  done  time  "  as  is  the  much 
quoted  stigma  "  once  a  criminal  always  a  crim- 
inal." The  rapidly  increasing  intelligence  of 
world-wide  philanthropy  is  coming  to  see  the 
fallacy  as  well  as  the  cruelty  of  the  latter,  but 
the  man  behind  the  bars  is  still  tempted  to  re- 
gard himself  as  a  nameless,  irresponsible  cog  in 
the  machine  of  state. 

As  X0923  the  man  who  had  once  written 
the  reverential  prefix  to  his  name,  who  had  in- 
scribed that  signature  on  many  an  affluent  check, 
felt  his  dominant  personality  slip  away  from 
him.  That  first  Sunday  morning  in  his  cell 
found  him  already  immersed  in  despairing 
apathy — under  the  paralyzing  sense  of  disgrace 
the  pulse  of  his  manhood  beat  slow. 

Annoyance  crossed  his  indifference  as  the 
sound  of  a  hymn  floated  up  through  the  corri- 
dor. He  had  done  with  religion  long  ago,  and 
to  be  reminded  of  his  own  connection  therewith 
now  was  cruel  mockery  indeed.     He  was  glad 


188  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

the  rules  did  not  permit  the  assembling  of  the 
prisoners,  but  he  could  not  shut  out  the  intrud- 
ing sounds  of  song  and  prayer.  Against  his 
will  one  man's  words  held  his  attention ;  simple 
and  slightly  ungrammatical  in  expression  they 
nevertheless  gripped  his  soul  as  no  sermon  of 
his  own  or  others  had  ever  done.  Alone  in  his 
prison  cell,  ostracized  from  the  set  which  had 
been  his  world,  the  man  felt  for  the  first  time  in 
his  life  the  thrill  of  Divinity.  Consciousness  of 
the  Presence  transformed  him.  He  who  had 
pleaded  "  not  guilty  "  with  a  steady  eye,  who 
had  held  his  head  so  high  in  self-righteous  com- 
placency, now  fell  upon  his  knees  smitten  by  the 
revelation  of  his  undone  state  and  guilty  heart. 
As  the  Salvation  Army  soldier  concluded  his 
testimony  and  gave  place  to  a  song  of  praise, 
the  man  in  a  distant  cell  lay  on  his  face  before 
his  God  crying : 

"  Be  merciful  to  me,  a  sinner." 

The  humble  instrument  never  knew  his  mis- 
sion was  so  crowned  that  morning.  Heaven 
holds  many  surprises. 

So  it  was  that  when  Martin,  his  sentence 
further  commuted  by  good  behaviour,  came  out 
into  the  world  again  he  carried  a  new  and  very 


X0923  189 

different  spirit  beneath  the  ill-fitting  suit  of 
prison-made  clothes.  But  the  world  did  not  see 
the  new  spirit — its  eye  did  not  get  past  the 
clothes,  recognized  all  too  easily  as  the  parting 
gift  of  a  Federal  penal  institution.  With  his  for- 
tune exhausted  by  his  lost  legal  fight,  with  old 
friends  turning  upon  him  a  look  of  steel,  with 
no  references  at  his  command,  with  a  few  dwin- 
dling dollars  in  his  pocket,  Martin  found  himself 
in  a  new  and  wholly  antagonistic  atmosphere. 
Only  the  criminal  world  was  open  and  anxious 
for  him,  but  he  shunned  its  advances,  and  after 
long  fruitless  days  seeking  employment  his 
evenings  were  spent  in  any  religious  meetings 
he  could  find  where  he  forgot  his  loneliness  by 
listening  to  the  Words  of  Life.  Little  did  his 
fellow  worshippers  suspect  the  fight  going  on 
beneath  that  quiet  exterior  as  each  night  found 
him  hungrier,  thinner  and  more  footsore. 

With  an  empty  pocket  and  an  empty  stomach 
he  turned  into  a  noonday  prayer-meeting,  too 
faint  to  walk  another  step.  When  experiences 
were  invited  Martin  gave  his — just  a  word  or 
two  of  grateful  praise  for  what  God  had  done 
for  him  in  a  prison  cell  with  no  hint  of  his 
present  hard  case. 


190  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

"  Fool ! "  He  caught  the  evil  one's  voiceless 
recrimination  as  he  went  out  with  the  crowd. 
"  Why  did  you  label  yourself  a  jail-bird  ?  " 

"  Friend,"  said  a  business  man  in  his  ear,  "  I 
have  a  little  of  the  Lord's  money,  and  maybe 
you  are  one  of  His  children  who  need  it." 

Martin  was  much  averse  to  taking  anything 
that  looked  like  charity,  but  this  unknown 
benefactor  insisted  on  helping  him  with  two 
weeks'  board  and  lodging.  The  man's  search 
for  work  now  became  frantic.  For  weeks  his 
only  job  was  the  carrying  of  a  load  of  coal  for 
which  he  was  thrown  twenty-five  cents — fifteen 
of  which  went  at  once  to  meet  the  need  of  an- 
other ex-convict  whom  he  met  in  extremis. 

It  was  after  many  vicissitudes  that  some 
years  later  Martin  again  came  into  touch  with 
the  Salvation  Army.  His  gratitude  had  al- 
ways followed  it,  and  when  the  small  prison 
work  with  which  he  had  identified  himself 
handed  over  its  operations  to  the  Army's  grow- 
ing prison  branch,  Martin  with  a  full  heart 
asked  if  he  might  not  be  thrown  into  the  bar- 
gain. 

"  Come  on  trial  for  six  months,"  said  its  lead- 
ers. 


X0923  191 

But  he  has  been  there  eight  years,  and  ex- 
pects to  serve  a  self-imposed  life  sentence,  for 
closer  acquaintance  with  the  people  to  whom 
he  owed  his  prison-found  peace  convinced  him 
that  they  were  to  be  his  even  unto  death. 

He  early  discovered  the  confidence  which  the 
Army's  name  bestows  upon  its  followers.  One 
day  after  speaking  in  an  open-air  meeting,  a 
plain  clothes  oiRcial  touched  Martin's  uni- 
formed sleeve  saying : 

"  Well,  I  guess  my  job's  through." 

Unknown  the  man  had  shadowed  him  for 
years. 

Martin  has  found  his  sphere.  "Whether  in  the 
little  office  to  which  ex-prisoners  turn  as  to  a 
beacon  of  hope  and  help,  or  within  the  gates  of 
the  hundreds  of  penal  institutions  to  which  he 
and  his  associates  have  access,  the  man  puts 
every  ounce  of  his  own  painful  past  into  good 
account.  "  Thank  God  and  the  Army,"  he 
says,  "  for  this  chance  of  keeping  up  a  man's 
heart  when  he  stands,  as  I  did,  alone  before  an 
unfriendly  world.  I  never  forget  how  it  felt, 
or  what  I  would  have  given  for  such  a  hand  as 
the  Army  now  holds  out  to  them.  Some  of 
their  hearts  are  touched  as  mine  was  behind  the 


192  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

bars  ;  more  still  feel  our  hand-clasp  (the  Army's) 
when  the  bars  shut  behind  them." 

In  Martin's  good  memory  and  better  heart 
are  legions  of  histories  revealing  not  only  the 
chasm  which  the  Army  has  bridged  for  these 
men,, but  the  gratitude  that  has  come  back  from 
those  who  have  stumbled  across  it  into  honesty, 
good  citizenship  and  repentance.  Not  all  find 
at  once  the  great  Eternal  Remedy,  and  the 
Army's  temporal  help  is  never  withheld  because 
its  spiritual  message  is  not  immediately 
grasped,  but,  in  the  language  of  its  Prisoners' 
League,  "  a  brighter  day  "  is  dawning  for  any 
man  who  comes  into  that  office  with  its  helpful 
yet  humble  motto  conspicuously  waiting  to 
catch  his  eye : 

*'  I  am  not  what  I  ought  to  be, 
I  am  not  what  I  wish  to  be, 
I  am  not  what  I  hope  to  be, 
But  by  the  Grace  of  God 
I  am  not  what  I  once  was." 

We  close  with  a  scene  in  a  crowded  confer- 
ence hall.  Every  seat  is  filled,  but  beyond 
these  serious  eyed  delegates  it  is  easy  to  imagine 
the  audience  increased  a  thousandfold  by  men 


X0923  193 

whose  uniformed  garb  and  close-cropped  hair 
proclaim  those  who  have  forfeited  the  right  to 
voice  their  rights.  Such  meetings  mightily  in- 
crease one's  faith  in  human  nature — the  warder 
of  those  paying  penalty  to  the  state  can  no 
longer  be  featured  even  by  the  most  sensational 
as  a  gloating  jailor  as  he  sits  here  with  mercy 
tempering  the  justice  of  his  eye,  flanked  by 
citizens  cooperating  with  him  for  the  welfare 
of  criminals  on  both  sides  of  the  bars.  Much 
good  work  has  been  explained  and  eulogized, 
and  the  hour  is  late  when  the  chairman  of  the 
prison  conference  unexpectedly  rises  to  express 
his  own  observation  of  the  splendid  service 
rendered  this  cause  by  the  Salvation  Army. 
He  speaks  of  its  ministrations  to  the  prisoner, 
its  timely  assistance  to  the  ex-prisoner,  and  of 
the  adaptable  machinery  which  makes  its  efforts 
effectual  for  the  prisoners'  families.  All  eyes 
are  turned  upon  the  two  quiet  men  in  blue  as 
the  chairman  calls  for  a  word  from  the  Army 
delegates.  The  senior  oiUcer  tells  Martin  to 
respond,  but  the  man's  heart  is  full.  He  re- 
members what  the  Army  folk  carried  to  his 
cell  years  ago,  the  countless  mu'acles  and 
mercies  he  has  seen  them  accomplish  in  the 


194  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

lives  of  others,  and  thanking  the  chairman 
with  a  word  of  gratitude,  simply  adds  with  the 
brevity  and  sincerity  of  true  eloquence  : 

"  I,  an  ex-prisoner  myself,  have  no  words  to 
eulogize  the  Salvation  Army's  prison  work,  but, 
like  Niagara,  it  speaks  for  itself ! " 


XIII 

LATIN  AMEEICA 

"  If  they  kill  me  I  go  Home  the  sooner  " 

THE  Latin  stranger  within  America's 
gates  is  a  growing  force  impossible  to 
ignore.  The  Italian  element  in  par- 
ticular shows  notable  increase  in  numbers  and 
calibre,  and  no  record  of  spiritual  awakening 
among  the  peoples  of  this  Union  would  be  com- 
plete without  the  representative  redemption  of 
a  sojourner  from  Europe's  Southland. 

Only  seventeen  miles  from  Yenice,  the  beauti- 
ful city  of  Treviso  is  off  the  beaten  track  of  the 
tourist  and  escapes  both  the  inconvenience  and 
the  cash  value  of  his  presence.  The  name  is 
derived  from  a  word  meaning  "  Three  faces," 
for  Treviso  from  time  immemorial  has  been  a 
"  three-faced  "  community — rich,  middle-class 
and  low,  all  looking  in  different  directions,  liv- 
ing their  life  as  if  the  other  two  did  not  exist. 

It  does  not  take  great  astuteness  to  discover 
that  Lodovico  belongs  to  the  lowest  strata  of 
195 


196  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

Treviso's  society,  yet  as  he  sits  eating  grapes  in 
the  sun  which  has  so  often  filled  his  deficiencies 
in  both  food  and  clothing  there  is  nothing  to 
awaken  pity.  No  one  would  guess  that  the 
fruit  given  him  by  a  friendly  street  vendor 
makes  his  only  meal  for  the  day  as,  swallowing 
the  last  of  it,  he  slowly  rises  to  his  feet  and 
walks  off  with  the  air  of  a  young  prince, 
serenely  unconscious  of  the  large  and  ugly  patch 
which  spoils  the  colour  scheme  of  his  nether 
view.  But  follow  the  little  fellow  further 
down  the  street.  See  the  bitterness  blind  the 
sunshine  of  his  smile  and  the  boyish  frame 
stiffen  with  impotent  resentment  as  he  drags 
a  drunkard  out  of  the  gutter,  and  his  disgusted 
cry  of  "  Padre  "  is  followed  by  our  involuntary, 
"  Poor  Lodovico ! " 

Then  there  is  the  long,  painful  journey  home, 
the  boy  almost  carrying  the  man,  the  arrival  at 
the  bare  little  house,  the  mother's  cry,  "  Mother 
of  God,  pity  us,"  the  son's  passionate,  "  Never 
will  I  be  bad  like  him."  In  after  years  Lodo- 
vico sums  up  his  parentage :  "  My  mother  was 
an  angel  but  my  father  was  a  devil."  Inclined 
towards  goodness  by  the  influence  of  one 
parent,  hampered  by  the  hereditary  vices  of  the 


LATIN  AMEEICA  197 

other,  the  boy  starts  out  at  the  age  of  eleven  to 
help  earn  the  family  bread.  Again  we  say, 
"  Poor  Lodovico  !  " 

More  than  twelve  years  later  we  find  the 
young  Italian  sweltering  in  the  "  oil  hole  "  of  a 
merchant  vessel  bound  for  New  York.  Upon 
his  entire  worldly  belongings  he  has  realized 
the  sum  of  fifty  francs  which  the  captain 
promptly  pockets,  telling  Lodovico  that  he  may 
work  his  passage  over  !  That  first  night  spent 
in  a  dark  closet  filled  with  the  stench  of  stored 
petroleum  is  a  severe  test  of  immigrant  en- 
thusiasm, but  Lodovico's  one  thought  is  to  put 
the  ocean  between  himself  and  Italy — he  is  al- 
ready a  prodigal  and  a  wife  deserter. 

Lodovico's  shears  have  been  sacrificed  to  help 
pay  his  passage,  and  what  is  a  tailor  without 
his  two  pronged  sword  ?  However,  he  appeals 
to  the  first  Italian  he  meets  in  New  York — 
characteristically  a  fruit  vendor. 

"  Show  me  a  tailor.  I  want  work — not 
charity.  See,  I  have  money,"  displaying  a 
handful  for  which  he  has  exchanged  on  board 
his  one  decent  suit  of  clothes.  The  fruit  vendor 
laughs.  It  is  a  typical  sailors'  deal — only 
twelve  cents  good  money  out  of  the  handful. 


198  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

Hungry,  unshaven  and  disheartened  the 
stranger  at  last  finds  an  Italian  restaurateur 
who,  impressed  by  a  starving  man's  refusal  to 
eat  an  unearned  supper,  gives  him  his  chance 
upon  a  garment  of  his  own.  "With  this  over- 
coat Lodovico  makes  brilliantly  good  ;  a  friend 
and  countryman  of  the  gratified  owner  offers 
to  take  Lodovico  into  his  ladies'  tailoring  estab- 
lishment, and  from  now  on  this  ceases  to  be  a 
"  hard  luck  "  story. 

But  good  money  and  plenty  of  it  only  com- 
plicates the  labyrinth  of  temptation.  Lodovico 
finds  sin  perilously  easy  with  a  well-filled 
pocket.  A  twinge  of  conscience  reminds  him 
of  his  forsaken  family  and  he  sends  help  home ; 
to  appease  another  he  remits  passage  money  for 
his  wife  and  children,  but  the  reunion  is  short- 
lived. Lodovico  is  in  the  toils  of  a  power  as 
designing  as  it  is  fascinating,  and  for  many 
years  the  poor  little  wife  lives  the  life  of  a  dog. 
When  her  husband  comes  in  at  the  door  she 
faces  brutality  and  misery ;  when  he  goes  out 
of  it  she  has  to  work  night  and  day  to  keep  a 
roof  over  the  children's  heads,  for  on  his  long 
absences  all  the  tailor's  big  wages  are  spent 
upon  another.     Again  and  again  he  promises  to 


LATIN  AMEEICA  199 

reform  only  to  fall,  and  the  wife's  heart  is  sick 
with  disappointed  hope ;  he  writes  that  he  is 
preparing  a  home  for  her  in  New  York,  and 
she  travels  thither  only  to  find  that,  his 
good  intention  overridden,  he  has  fled  to  Chi- 
cago. 

Fifteen  desertions  in  as  many  years;  no 
wonder  the  slender  frame  droops,  and  many 
lines  trace  their  woeful  story  around  the  patient 
lips.  She  lives  for  her  children's  sake,  but  in  all 
that  makes  life  for  herself  she  feels  already 
dead.  Then  one  day  a  ministering  angel  in  a 
plain  blue  dress  finds  her  way  into  the  desolate 
home  and  the  still  more  desolate  heart.  Be- 
fore many  a  crucifix  in  her  own  land  has 
Lodovico's  wife  told  her  beads,  but  now  a  Book 
is  opened  telling  the  story  of  the  Crucified, 
making  it  precious  and  personal  as  she  had  not 
known  it  could  be.  In  the  cup  of  her  own  re- 
pentance she  drowns  the  bitterest  drop  of  her 
many  injuries,  and  life  becomes  bearable  as 
religion  relights  her  candle  of  hope. 

Next  time  the  wanderer  returns,  it  is  to  find 
the  little  woman  on  her  knees  and  to  catch  the 
words : 

"  Gesu,  salva  mio  Lodovico." 


200  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

At  first  resentment  conceals  condemnation ; 
then  a  second  thought  brings  the  quick  tear 
of  the  Italian  to  his  eye. 

"  She  might  well  curse  instead  of  pray ; 
she  was  always  too  good  to  me." 

But  the  emotion  is  only  passing.  Lodovico 
is  willing  for  his  wife's  religion,  but  feels  no 
concern  as  to  his  own  crookedness.  He  con- 
tinues to  drink  like  a  fish,  smoke  like  a  furnace 
and  spend  his  earnings  upon  the  siren  who  has 
so  many  times  successfully  lured  him.  JSTever- 
theless  the  impression  made  upon  him  by  his 
wife's  new  friends  has  its  effects.  Anger  hides 
his  shame  as  he  hears  of  their  care  for  his 
neglected  family,  but  the  shame  outlives  the 
anger,  and  in  a  strange  mingling  of  abashed 
gratitude  and  sincere  respect  he  blurts  out  the 
tribute : 

"  Wife,  I  will  be  one  of  two  things — a  Salva- 
tionist or  a  devil." 

But  for  a  long  time  it  seems  as  if  his  choice, 
had  fallen  upon  the  latter  and  his  wife  still 
weeps  and  prays.  It  is  hard  for  her  to  break 
up  the  little  home  and  go  out  West,  but  Lodo- 
vico appears  anxious  to  take  his  family  there, 
and  on   chance  of  maintaining  their  reunion 


LATIN  AMERICA  201 

^e  dares  not  hold  back.  She  would  feel  more 
rejuctance  if  she  could  know,  as  she  does  after- 
waiis,  that  Lodovico's  chief  motive  in  going  is 
to  pit  miles  of  separation  between  them  and 
the  Salvation  Army,  such  propinquity  being 
altogether  too  condemning.  She  is  at  a  loss  to 
understjnd  Lodovico's  start  and  muttered  curse 
when  th^  first  person  they  meet  on  the  street 
of  a  distant  Western  town  happens  to  be  a  Sal- 
vationist in  full  uniform ! 

The  evil  sj)irit  that  is  fighting  for  Lodovico's 
soul  invites  tim  to  celebrate  his  new  arrival 
with  a  fresh  and  wilder  plunge  into  debauchery, 
but  it  is  his  last  stand.  Another  and  a  mightier 
force  is  at  work  upon  this  tangled  skein  of  life, 
and  a  Divine  Hand  begins  to  sort  out  the  mesh 
of  circumstances  in  which  Lodovico's  many 
sinning  years  have  involved  him.  The  leading 
thread  is  drawn  when  Lodovico  discovers  that 
he  is  the  only  Italian  in  the  city.  His  usual 
convivialities  pall  without  a  compatriot  to  share 
them  and  he  can  no  longer  resort  to  the  excuse, 
"  Because  of  my  friends  I  cannot  be  a  good 
man."  It  seems  as  if  a  Voice  rings  in  his  ears, 
"  The  time  has  come." 

One  beautiful  June  evening  the  Salvation 


202  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

Army  Captain  chooses  as  text,  "  The  Prince  of 
Peace."  Lodovico  has  taken  to  dropping  ini-o 
the  meetings  and  is  sitting  by  his  wife,  and  Aer 
heart  swells  as  she  sees  a  big  tear  roll  dowr  his 
cheek.  There  is  a  world  of  sadness  in  that  drop. 
For  the  first  time  in  his  life  Lodovico  i^alizes 
that  he  has  missed  the  best  in  it.  Jusiness 
prosperity,  sinful  pleasure,  an  angel  d  a  wife, 
but  never  since  the  hour  he  first  fal  one  mo- 
ment of  peace,  and  his  heart  feels  one  big  wound 
aching  for  want  of  it.  His  wife  has  forgiven 
him  and  taken  him  back  but  thgt  cannot,  does 
not  satisfy  the  ache  of  his  hungry  spirit ;  he 
has  lost  faith  in  any  absolution  a  church  can 
give — he  knows  not  that  he  is  experiencing  the 
pangs  of  which  one  wrote  centuries  before, 
"  Thou  hast  made  man  for  Thyself,  and  our 
souls  are  restless  till  they  find  their  rest  in 
Thee." 

The  restlessness  of  Lodovico's  soul  will  not  let 
him  sit  still.  He  rises  to  his  feet  and  slips  into 
the  seat  in  front ;  that  is  not  near  enough,  and 
he  tries  the  next,  and  still  like  a  magnet  those 
words,  "The  Prince  of  Peace,"  lead  him  on. 
With  held  breath  his  wife's  trembling  heart 
follows  that  painful  progress,  and  nearly  stops 


LATIN  AMEEICA  203 

for  joy  as  she  sees  him  walk  like  one  in  a  dream 
to  the  penitents'  bench  and  fall  weeping  to  his 
knees. 

There  are  those  who  affirm  that  the  moment 
of  regeneration  is  indistinguishable,  that  only 
by  its  effects  can  the  regenerated  prove  it  has 
actually  taken  place  ;  but  such  a  belief  will  never 
hold  weight  with  Lodovico.  For  as  he  sobs 
out  the  agony  of  a  profligate's  heart  there  comes 
upon  him  a  mighty  trembling.  He  is  conscious 
of  a  convulsion  of  spirit  which  is  indescribable 
and  then — O  thrice  welcome  sound — he  hears 
the  same  voice  which  bade  the  devils  depart  in 
Galilee  saying, "  Sin  no  more."  Peace  has  come 
to  stay. 

A  few  weeks  afterwards  a  whiskey  seller  and 
a  tobacco  merchant  meet  on  a  street  corner. 

"  Say,"  says  the  man  of  drink,  "  I've  lost  a 
good  customer.  The  gay  Italiano  buys  no 
more  from  me." 

"  'Not  from  me,"  says  the  man  of  smoke. 

"  He  must  be  crazy,"  they  agree. 

"  Lodovico,  have  you  turned  fool  ?  "  writes 
the  siren. 

But  in  the  little  home  where  the  husband 
and  father  has  settled  down  in  his  long  empty 


204  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

place  a  woman  between  smiles  and  tears  says 
to  herself : 

"  God  has  brought  my  Lodovico  to  his  right 
senses  at  last." 

House  to  house  visitation  begins  Lodovico's 
ministry  in  his  adopted  country  and  in  an- 
other city,  holding  many  needy  compatriots, 
he  works  up  a  splendid  little  Salvation  Army 
community  which  exists  to-day.  All  the 
warmth  of  the  Italian's  warm  nature  is  now 
alive  for  others,  and  he  thinks  nothing  of  being 
called  out  of  bed  after  a  hard  day's  work  to 
pray  or  help.  Italian  speaking  comrades  are 
few,  and  Lodovico  does  most  of  his  meetings 
himself,  sometimes  leading  as  many  as  five 
open-air  services  one  after  another.  At  first 
the  persecution  is  annoying,  even  dangerous. 
The  neighbourhood  is  dynamic  and  a  gang  of 
anarchists  several  times  attempt  to  upset  and 
disperse  his  meetings.  After  repeated  annoy- 
ances and  many  menaces  towards  his  poor  pa- 
rishioners, Lodovico  has  them  arrested.  His 
people  wail  that  he  takes  his  life  in  his  hands 
by  so  doing,  and  when  the  anarchists  are  not 
only  severely  censured  but  heavily  fined  for 
their  maltreatment  of  the  Italian  Salvationists, 


LATIN  AMEEICA  205 

there  are  rumours  that  Lodovico's  life  will  pay 
the  forfeit.  But  next  Sunday  the  offenders 
come  in  peace  and  penitence  to  buy  each  an 
Italian  Bible  from  Lodovico  who  is  colporteur 
as  well  as  preacher.  Now  his  work  is  in  a 
locality  terrorized  by  tribute  exacted  by  the 
Black  Hand — dangerous  soil  for  this  sower 
of  the  truth,  but  Lodovico  is  unafraid.  He 
says: 

"  If  they  kill  me  I  go  Home  the  sooner." 
Nor  does  the  work  end  here.  Lodovico's 
converts  are  perpetuating  it  and  will  go  on  to 
do  so.  One  returns  to  Italy  with  the  fire  burn- 
ing in  his  breast  and  for  his  fearless  preaching 
is  thrown  into  prison.  Coming  out,  this  man 
assists  in  one  of  the  mightiest  revivals  the 
sunny  land  has  ever  known.  Up  and  down 
their  native  mountains  Salvation  donkey  riders 
are  still  echoing  the  heavenly  songs  he  taught 
them.  In  one  Italian  quarter  of  a  great  Amer- 
ican city  a  saloon  is  now  a  Salvation  Sunday- 
school  for  dark-eyed  boys  and  girls.  In  an- 
other a  man  goes  to  and  fro  with  Bible  and 
blessing.  One  who  knelt  in  rags  at  this 
humble  mercy  seat  is  now  a  missionary.  Eight 
Salvation  Army  olScers  have  gone  out  from 


206  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

this  little  corps.    And  the  good  work  goes  on 
growing. 

Lodovico  is  still  a  tailor.  He  has  not  even 
the  very  small  stipend  of  a  Salvation  Army 
oflBcer  to  hold  him  to  his  work  ;  love  for  it  is  a 
better  chain.  He  is  none  the  worse  preacher 
because  he  is  an  expert  workman,  and  many  a 
new  suit  reminds  its  wearer  of  the  courteous 
word  in  good  season  which  has  spiritualized 
the  hour  of  its  fitting. 


XIV 
WASTED  TIME? 

Its  love  for  the  people  is  no  more  passive  than  was 
the  love  of  its  Lord 

CLEANLINESS  is  next  to  godliness," 
said  the  Lieutenant  as  she  scrubbed 
the  quarters  floor. 
"Cleanliness  is  godliness,"  amended  the 
Captain  from  the  wash-tub.  "  You  can't  have 
a  clean  heart  without  a  good  one  and  to  my 
mind  you  can't  have  a  really  good  heart  with- 
out a  clean  house." 

Then  to  the  accompaniment  of    scrubbing 
brush  and  wringer  there  rose  the  duet : 

''  For  it  washes  white  as  snow, 
The  precious  Blood  of  Jesus, 
It  washes  white  as  snow. " 

It  was  not  often  the  two  indulged  in  so  long 

a  discussion  of  their  religious  principles  ;  usually 

they  were  too  busy  putting  them  into  practice. 

But  a  biting   blizzard  of  the  severest  winter 

207 


208  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

for  years  had  reconciled  both  to  a  morning's 
hard  work  at  home. 

A  timid  knock  at  the  door  halted  both 
women.  They  were  accustomed  to  summons 
at  all  hours  of  the  day  and  night — work  upon 
their  own  home  could  always  take  its  chance ; 
work  upon  others  was  more  often  than  not  an 
emergency  operation — sometimes  a  matter  of 
life  and  death.  The  Lieutenant  flung  the  door 
wide — a  small,  stiff  figure  tottered  across  the 
threshold,  his  blue,  piteous  lips  moving  voice- 
lessly. 

"  Poor  little  dumb  fellow !  "  said  the  Lieuten- 
ant. 

"  Dumb !  Not  a  bit  of  it,"  said  the  Captain. 
"  The  child's  frozen.  Put  a  bit  more  wood  in 
the  stove,  dear,  and  bring  a  blanket." 

There  was  a  special  light  in  the  Captain's 
eye,  a  special  prayer  in  her  heart,  as  she  set 
about  thawing  out  the  visitor.  She  had  recog- 
nized in  him  a  son  of  the  forlorn  hope  of  the 
neighbourhood — a  terrible  sinner  upon  whom 
she  had  been  warned  that  all  persuasions  and 
efforts  would  be  so  much  waste  time. 

At  last  the  child  was  able  to  deliver  his 
message — a  tragic  appeal  for  help — they  had 


WASTED  TIMEf  209 

nothing  to  eat  at  home ;  they  were  cold ;  the 
baby  had  died  in  the  night  and  mother  was  so 
ill  that  even  father  was  scared. 

"You  see.  Captain,"  went  on  the  loosened 
tongue,  "  it  was  awful  cold  last  night  and  we 
hadn't  covers  enough  to  go  round.  I  suppose 
we  hadn't  oughter,  but  as  many  of  us  as  could 
piled  into  mum's  bed,  and  I  guess  some  of  us 
kids  must  have  roUed  over  on  to  the  baby  and 
smashed  it  'cause  it  was  dead  this  morning." 

The  Lieutenant,  who  was  a  newcomer  at  this 
station  of  salvation  and  reUef,  felt  her  lips 
quivering,  but  the  Captain's  practical  heart 
brooded  to  herself: 

"  Well,  there  is  plenty  of  room  in  heaven  for 
the  poor  little  lamb." 

Up-hill  two  miles  in  the  teeth  of  a  howling 
wind  and  driving  snow-storm,  the  two  women 
fought  their  way.  They  were  out  of  breath 
and  almost  dropping  when  they  reached  the 
wretched  shanty  which  was  a  mere  mockery 
of  protection  against  the  elements.  As  they 
reached  the  door  it  opened  and  there  came  out 
one  of  those  unnamed  heroes  upon  whose 
breasts  many  medals  ought  to  glow — the 
parish  doctor. 


210  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

"  This  is  no  weather  to  be  abroad,"  he  ex- 
claimed. 

"You  set  us  a  bad  example,"  the  Captain 
gasped  through  blue  lips. 

"Well,  I  might  have  known  the  Salvation 
Army  girls  would  be  on  their  job,"  he  went 
on,  "  and  I'm  mighty  glad  you've  come.  You 
were  never  needed  worse." 

Within,  what  a  sight !  Seven  children 
hugged  a  stove  in  which  a  bit  of  charred 
wood  gave  forth  a  pitiful  pretense  of  heat. 
The  father  sat  in  the  corner  by  himself,  dazed 
and  despairing.  The  mother  shivered  under  a 
thin  coverlet,  the  dead  baby  still  lying  by  her 
side.  The  temperature  was  only  a  few  degrees 
above  the  frigidity  out-of-doors. 

The  odds  were  against  speedy  alleviation  but 
these  women  of  the  poke  bonnet  work  as  if  by 
magic — perhaps  the  magic  lies  in  the  fact  that 
they  do  work,  always  more  than  they  talk ! 
In  little  more  time  than  it  takes  to  write  it, 
there  was  a  big  fire  blazing  defiance  to  the  cold 
which  encroached  through  countless  cracks  and 
crevices.  The  children  were  munching  in 
industrious  unity  upon  the  "quick  lunch" 
which  fairy-like  appeared  from  the  Lieutenant's 


WASTED  TIME?  211 

basket.  The  mother  got  her  chattering  teeth 
under  control  beneath  the  warmth  of  the  Cap- 
tain's coat,  and  watched  her  remove  the  still 
little  form  to  a  cold  corner  of  the  shanty  and 
reverently  cover  it.  The  father  sat  stolidly  in 
his  broken  chair;  what  he  thought  is  shown 
later. 

Then  another  trip  to  the  Army  quarters,  the 
two  officers  returning  like  packhorses  through 
the  arctic  afternoon  bringing  blankets,  cloth- 
ing, food  and  a  neat  little  shroud  fashioned 
by  the  Lieutenant's  ready  needle  which  last 
brought  the  brimming  tears  to  flow  in  healing 
from  the  poor  mother's  reddened  eyes. 

"  Oh,  my  dears,"  she  moaned,  "  who  are  we 
that  you  should  so  care  for  us  ?  " 

"  Who  are  you  ? "  said  the  Captain  kissing 
the  lined  brow  which  she  had  just  tenderly 
bathed.  "  Why,  some  one  who  is  very  dear  to 
God.  He  sent  us  straight  to  you  because  He 
loved  you  and  wanted  us  to  help  you." 

Still  the  man  sat  silent — watching,  listening. 

There  is  a  store  which  boasts  that  a  customer 
could  pass  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave  through 
its  various  departments  without  an  unsatisfied 
want.     The  Salvation  Army  slum  officers  could 


212  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

boast  that  there  is  no  phase  of  life  in  which 
they  have  not  enacted  the  necessary  part. 
Thus  these  women  on  occasion  have  served  as 
pastors,  scrub  women,  lawyers,  nurses,  police- 
men, doctors  and  what  not. 

At  the  funeral  on  the  morrow  the  Captain 
appeared  both  as  the  officiating  clergyman  and 
funeral  director.  The  snow  had  ceased  but 
the  wind  continued  and  the  temperature  had 
sunk  still  lower.  When  the  cemetery  was 
reached  the  Captain  nearly  fell — both  feet 
were  frozen,  and  no  one  knew  the  agony  the 
gritty  little  woman  went  through  as  she  com- 
mitted the  small  casket  to  the  snowy  grave. 

Some  nights  after  the  notorious  father  entered 
the  Army  hall,  six  of  his  children  obediently 
following  his  lead.  Then*  round  eyes  grew 
wider  and  wider  as  the  man  walked  with 
deliberation  to  the  penitent  form.  Those 
present  could  scarcely  believe  their  eyes,  for 
it  was  said  that  this  man  had  outtired  every 
Christian's  patience  in  town.  But  wonder 
changed  to  praise  as  they  saw  that  he  was 
sober  and  heard  the  agony  of  weeping  which 
convulsed  the  strong  frame.  His  presence 
there  seemed  a  miracle;  that  he  should  rise 


WASTED  TIME?  213 

with  such  a  transfigured  face  filled  every 
soldier's  heart  with  thanksgiving,  and  brimmed 
over  the  cup  of  happiness  of  the  faithful  little 
Captain. 

Years  have  proved  how  definite  was  that 
transaction,  how  wonderful  that  deliverance, 
how  revolutionary  its  merciful  effects  upon 
wretched  family  and  wrecked  home.  But  the 
Captain  was  after  all  a  woman,  and  being  so 
could  not  withstand  an  involuntary  "  Why  ?  " 
and  a  very  excusable  "  What  was  there  in  that 
particular  meeting,  what  had  been  said,  or 
sung  or  felt  there  that  should  have  broken  down 
the  barriers  of  that  stubborn  heart  ?  "  When 
the  question  was  put  to  the  new  convert  his  un- 
hesitating reply  surprised  and  overwhelmed 
her.  Happy  tears  dropped  from  the  humble 
brown  eyes  as  she  heard  him  say  : 

"  It  wasn't  nothing  that  was  ever  said  or 
sung.  Captain.  It  was  what  you  done  when 
the  baby  died." 

Beautiful  sentence,  breaking  more  than  one 
rule  of  speech,  but  revealing  the  ethics  of  the 
Salvation  Army's  lovable  religion.  Surely  this 
is  the  secret  of  its  marvellous  success  as  well  as 
its  mighty  energy  for  the  succour  and  uplift  off 


214  THE  SALVAGE  OF  MEN 

others.  Its  love  for  the  people  is  no  more  pas- 
sive than  was  the  love  of  its  Lord.  Wonderful 
words  dropped  from  His  lips,  but  the  world  was 
convinced  by  deeds  of  blessing  and  at  last  by  a 
supreme  act  of  self-sacrifice.  So  these  saviours 
of  the  people  have  found  that  to  love  their 
neighbour  as  themselves  they  must  love  them 
with  a  love  that  sujffers  and  bears  and  serves 
until  by  the  light  of  their  love  they  lead  them 
to  the  feet  of  One  who  both  loves  and  saves. 
Earth's  recognition  finds  them  once  and  again 
in  such  rewarding  words  as  "  It  was  what  you 
done,  Captain " ;  heaven's  crowning  is  inevi- 
table at  the  hand  of  One  Who  has  described 
those  worthy  to  bear  His  name  as  not  those 
who  s(vy  "  Lord,  Loixi  "  but  those  who  do  the 
will  of  His  Father. 


Printed  m  the  United  Slates  of  Amerha 


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